Y- 1  i.  s. 
GJ. 


FICTIONAL    RAMBLES    IN    AND 
ABOUT    BOSTON 


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FICTIONAL  RAMBLES 

in  &  about 

Boston 


By 


jfrances  Weston  Carrutf) 

Author  of  "Those  Dale  Girls"  "The 
Way  of  Belinda"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 
MCMII 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS, 


Copyright,  1902,  by 
McClure,  Phillips  &  Company 


53982 


Published  October,  1902,  N 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MA 


tEo  t\)Q$c  HBostomans 

$$y  &untg 

tEtjesc  Gambles  in  1&\)tit  Citp 

#rc  &ffrctionatel£  ^Inscribes 


TAGE 


CONTENTS 

PART  I.     IN   MODERN   BOSTON 

i   Beacon  Hill  and  Street       .     .       3 

11  The  West  End 21 

in  The    Charles    Street    Neigh- 
bourhood      49 

iv  In  and  About  the  Common   .     .     61 

v  A  Ramble    Round    the  Public 

Garden 88 

vi  The  Back  Bay 109 

vii  The  South  End 144 

PART  II.     IN  OLD  BOSTON 

1  About  the  Wharves     .     .     .     .157 

11  The  Heart  of  the  Old  North 

End 176 

in  In  and  Around  Dock  Square   .  204 


CONTENTS 

iv  State  Street  and   the   King's  page 
Chapel  Neighbourhood   .     .220 

v  When  Commercial  Boston  Was 

Residential 245 

vi  In  Tremont  Street  and  Music 

Hall 267 


PART  III.     ABOUT  BOSTON 

1  Cambridge  and  Lexington 

11  Harvard 

hi  Westward 

iv  Toward  the  Blue  Hills 
v  Nahant  and  Nantasket    . 


283 

1    T    -7 

339 
346 
365 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Longfellow's  Grave Frontispifxe 

The  gilded  dome  of  the  State  House 5 

The  Old  Beacon 8 

The  Athenaeum 11 

An  Ancestral  Home  in  Mrs.  Moulton's  "Miss  Eyre"    ...  13 

Tablet  marking  site  of  Hancock  House 15 

The  home  of  Mildred  Wentworth 17 

The  semi-circular  windows  of  the  Somerset  Club. — Crawford 's 

"American  Politician" ig 

Beacon  Steps. — Howells''s  "A    Woman  s  Reason"       ....  23 

Mount  Vernon  Place 27 

41  Mount   Vernon   Street— the  home  of   Mrs.    Harrison   Gray 

Otis 28 

48  Mount  Vernon  Street — the  home  of  the  Coreys  ....  29 
The  perfect  Gothic  arch  formed  by  the  trees  that  line  both  sides 

of  Mount  Vernon  Street. — Helen  Reed's  "Miss  Theodora  "  31 

No.  59  Mount  Vernon  .Street 35 

A  row  of  old  houses  in  Mount  Vernon  Street 39 

82  Mount  Vernon  Street — the  home  of  the  Randolphs    ...  41 

Home  of  Rose  Jenness  in  tlTwo  Bites  at  a  Cherry"  ...  42 
Louisburg  Square — former  homes  of    Louisa    Alcott  and  Mr. 

Howells ,     .  43 

73  Pinckney  Street — the  home  of  the  Lacys       ......  46 

African  Methodist  Church,  68  Charles  Street    ......  50 

The  Church  of  the  Advent  and  Clergy  House,  Brimmer  Street.  51 

Charles  Street 54 

xi 


LIST       OF       ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  Telescope  in  the  Mall 63 

Ticknor  Mansion.     Union  Club.     Park  Street  Church.     Mall  65 

The  Common ...  69 

The  Long  Path  .     .  • 73 

The  Pond  in  the  Hollow        77 

Cows  on  the  Common Si 

The  Liberty  Tree 85 

The  Public  Garden 91 

The  Statue  of  Washington,  near  Commonwealth  Avenue      .      .  96 

Venus  Fountain  in  the  Public  Garden 97 

The  Swan  Boats 99 

The  Arlington  Street  Church  from  under  the  Kilmarnock  wil- 
low by  the  pond  in  the  Public  Garden     103 

An  Apothecary's  Window,  Mentioned  in  James's  "Bostonians"  105 

The  Home  of  Mrs.  Mesh  in  Arlington  Street 107 

Home  of  Mrs.  Adams  ("  Truth  Dexter"}  in  Beacon  Street   .      .  108 

The  Harvard  Bridge — part  of  the  Back  Bay ill 

296  Beacon  Street  (The  Oval   Doorway),  the  home  of   "  The 

Autocrat."     302,  the  home  of  Mr.  Howells 120 

Marlborough  Street 122 

Mrs.  Rangeley's  house   on  Marlborough  Street. — Arlo  Bates's 

"  The  Puritans" 123 

The  Home  of  the  Maxwells  .                124 

The  Home  of  the  Chauncey  Wilsons 125 

The  Avenue  through  the  Park 126 

The  St.  Botolph  Club — No.   2  Newbury  Street 127 

233  Clarendon  Street — the  home  of  the  late  Bishop  Brooks  12S 

Trinity  Church 129 

Interior  Trinity  Church 133 

The  Library        137 

The  Museum 139 

xii 


LIST       OF       ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  latter-day  edition  of  the  historic  Old  South  Church     .     .  141 

Concord  Square 145 

28    Rutland    Square — the    home    of     Mrs.     Louise     (handler 

Moulton 152 

The  Shipping  at  the  foot  of  State  Street 159 

The  inspiration  of  a  bit  of  Hawthorne  allegory 164 

The  old  Salt   House,  where  Hawthorne  wrote  "  The  Scarlet 

Letter" 167 

The  Lieutenant-Governor's  elegant  mansion 178 

Frankland's  house 182 

The  Home  of  Paul  Revere 1S3 

Salutation  Alley 1S6 

The  Old  North  Church 189 

Home  of  the  M'Murtaghs. — Stimscns  "Pirate  Gold"    .     .     .  193 

The  house  on  Hull  Street,  where  Gage  is  said  to  have  planned 

the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill 194 

Copp's  Hill  Burying  Ground 195 

The  spot  from  which  Lionel  Lincoln    watched  the  battle  of 

Bunker  Hill 199 

The  House  of  John  Tileston  in  Bynner's  "  Zachary  Phips"     .  201 

Union  (Boston)  Stone 206 

Faneuil  Hall 207 

The  old  Brasier  Inn 210 

A  bookshop  in  Cornhill 211 

The  Old  State  House        221 

The  Old  Colony  Bank 226 

Burying-ground  by  King  Charles' Chapel 231 

Kings  Chapel 235 

Interior  of  King's  Chapel 239 

Greenough's  Statue  of  Benjamin  Franklin — City  Hall      .      .      .  242 

The  Corner  Bookstore 243 


LIST       OF       ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Old  South  Church 259 

Province  House        265 

Grave  of  Benjamin  Woodbridge 270 

Entrance  to  the  Music  Hall 275 

Mansion  at  Medford 287 

Christ  Church  Graveyard 291 

Birthplace  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 295 

Washington  Elm 298 

The  Longfellow  Mansion ;     .  299 

Elmwood 303 

The  Road  to  Concord 307 

Monroe  Tavern — Lexington 308 

Lexington  Common 310 

The  Lexington  Minute  Man 311 

The  Johnston  Memorial  Gate  and  Harvard  Hall 317 

The  College  Yard 321 

The  Library        325 

Holworthy 329 

Memorial  Hall '.  335 

Country  Club,  Brookline .  342 

The  Upper  Charles  River 345 

The  Governor  Shirley  Mansion 351 

Jamaica  Pond 354 

A  Roxbury  Garden 355 

The  Quincy-Butler  Mansion 359 

The  Stream. — Stimsons  "King  Noanett" 363 

The  Cliff. — Stimsons  "Pirate  Gold" 366 

Pulpit  Rock,  Nahant 369 

Nantasket  Beach 375 


INTRODUCTORY 

"  Come,  seek  the  air ;  some  pictures  we  may  gain 
Whose  passing  shadows  shall  not  be  in  vain." 

Holmes. 

A  WORLD  of  fascinating  romance  un- 
folds itself  to  those  who  seek  to  iden- 
tify the  homes  and  haunts  of  the 
characters  in  Boston  fiction.  If,  as  the  great 
dramatist  has  told  us,  it  is  the  part  of  the  po- 
et's genius  to  give  to  airy  nothings  a  local 
habitation  and  a  name,  it  may  interest  the  ad- 
mirer and  follower  of  the  makers  of  fiction  to 
devote  himself  to  searching  out  and  oqvina- 
permanence  to  persons  and  localities  which, 
though  in  sober  fact  they  never  had  any  exist- 
ence, yet  have  been  and  always  will  be  as  real 
as  any  historic  characters  of  the  past ;  forming 
a  drama  of  life  such  as  is  woven  by  the  artist 


INTRODUCTORY 

in  colours  so  vivid  and  impressive  that  the  ac- 
tors become  a  part  of  ourselves — their  haunts 
and  habitations  to  be  individualized,  identified 
and  held  in  tender  remembrance. 

To  the  traveler  the  Old  World  owes  its  at- 
tractiveness quite  as  much  to  the  creations  of 
Shakespeare,  Scott,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  Bal- 
zac, Hugo  and  Dumas  as  to  the  princes,  states- 
men and  soldiers  of  whose  births  and  deaths 
history  tells  us  with  so  much  pomp  and  preci- 
sion. It  was  said  by  an  admirer  of  Henry 
Esmond  that  the  charm  of  the  Potomac  River 
was  not  in  the  military  associations  so  insepa- 
rably blended  with  it,  but  in  the  fact  that  on 
its  banks  Esmond  and  the  woman  who  had  so 
patiently  waited  for  his  wooing  had  established 
themselves ;  linking  the  noble  Virginia  stream 
with  the  memories  of  the  Stuarts  and  Addison, 
with  the  English  meadows  and  with  the  cam- 
paigns of  Marlborough.  Gibraltar's  towering 
might  impressed  a  devotee  of  Marry  at  not  as 
being  England's  gateway  fortress  of  the  Med- 
iterranean, held  more  than  once  against  a  world 


INTRODUCTORY 

in  arms,  but  as  the  scene  of  the  exploits  of  Mr. 
Midshipman  Easy  and  the  discomfiture  of  the 
surly  boatswain.  Every  year  a  throng  of  tour- 
ists wander  through  the  land  of  Evangeline 
asking  persons  native  to  the  soil  to  point  out 
localities  whose  names,  as  a  rule,  mean  nothing 
to  them  who  are  questioned,  unless,  perchance, 
they  may  have  read  Longfellow's  immortal 
poem.  Robinson  Crusoe's  island  has  been  ex- 
plored as  thoroughly  as  for  buried  treasure  — 
the  seekers  looking  not  for  gold  or  jewels,  but 
to  identify  the  spring,  the  cave,  or  the  spot  on 
the  sands  where  Robinson  was  startled  by  the 
solitary  footprint. 

So  Boston  has  been  the  scene  of  much  that 
will  live  in  American  fiction  ;  but  it  may  be 
doubted  if  it  has  yet  fulfilled  all  that  may  be 
required  of  it  by  the  poet  or  novelist.  For 
many  years  it  was  the  town  not  only  of  New 
England,  but  of  North  America,  leading  polit- 
ically and  commercially  as  well  as  intellect- 
ually, but  the  men  who  gave  it  world-wide 
fame    in    literature  were    not    writing  fiction. 


INTRODUCTORY 

Puritan  theology  stamps  the  first  Boston  lit- 
erature which,  gradually  showing  a  tendency 
toward  broader  development,  took  the  form  of 
essays  and  poetry.  About  1830  Nathaniel  P. 
Willis,  Boston  bred  but  not  born,  was  the  fore- 
most young  American  writer.  "  Longfellow 
was  not  yet  conspicuous,"  says  Holmes.  "  Lo- 
well was  a  schoolboy.  Emerson  was  unheard 
of.  Whittier  was  beginning  to  make  his  way 
against  the  writers  with  better  educational  ad- 
vantages whom  he  was  destined  to  outdo  and 
outlive.  ...  If  the  reader  wishes  to  see  the 
bubbles  of  reputation  that  were  floating,  some 
of  them  gay  with  prismatic  colours,  half  a  cen- 
tury ago,  he  will  find  in  the  pages  of  a  small 
volume  entitled  Truth,  A  Gift  For  Scrib- 
blers, a  long  catalogue  of  celebrities  he  never 
heard  of." 

Of  all  the  brilliant  classic-literature-making- 
group  which  later  centered  about  Emerson  and 
Longfellow,  only  Hawthorne  and  Holmes 
strayed  into  the  realms  of  fiction.  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell,  perhaps,  should  be  included,  for  he 


INTRODUCTORY 

published  a  novel  called  My  First  Client  which 
met  with  a  dubious  fate  and  long  ago  disap- 
peared. Those  were  the  days  when  "  Liter- 
ature in  Boston,"  says  Mr.  Howells,  "was  so 
respectable  and  often  of  so  high  a  lineage  that 
to  be  a  poet  was  not  only  to  be  good  society, 
but  almost  to  be  good  family."  As  poet  and 
essayist,  Holmes,  "the  last  leaf  upon  the  tree," 
wrote  of  the  Boston  which  he  knew  and  loved 
with  a  deeper  sense  of  kinship  and  affection 
than  any  of  his  contemporaries.  But  the 
scenes  of  his  fiction  are  with  one  exception 
away  from  the  city  by  him  dubbed  "  the  Hub." 
This  exception  is  The  Guardian  Angel — one 
of  what  an  old  lady  called  his  "  medicated 
novels,"  to  the  great  amusement  of  the  author. 
In  spite  of  all  that  novelists  have  had  to  say 
about  Boston,  to  Mr.  Arlo  Bates  belongs  the 
distinction  of  having  presented  it  in  kaleido- 
scopic form.  The  many-sidedness  of  the  town 
and  the  marked  characteristics  of  its  people 
which  stamp  them  Bostonese  the  world  over 
pervade  his    novels,    giving    them  an  intense 


INTRODUCTORY 

localism  which  is  never  provincialism.  He 
strikes  the  true  key  in  presenting  it  on  its 
aesthetical,  ethical,  fashionable,  practical  and 
religious  sides  —  the  evolution  of  modern 
Boston  emerging  from  pro-Puritanism.  This, 
in  a  more  or  less  degree,  is  the  Boston  we  find 
in  the  pages  of  such  fiction  as  Truth  mDextcr, 
The  Sentimentalists,  Margaret  Warrener,  The 
Turn  of  the  Road,  Miss  Brooks,  Ballantyne 
and  Her  Boston  Experiences.  Mr.  Howells,  a 
dominant  writer  of  Boston  fiction,  saturating 
his  pages  with  its  business,  social  and  intel- 
lectual atmosphere,  personifies  varied  types, 
which,  photographic  as  they  are,  fail  to  present 
certain  phases  of  the  genuine  Bostonese.  This 
may  be  because  of  his  tendency  to  draw  ua 
Bostonian,  not  the  Bostonian,"  which  was  Dr. 
Holmes's  way  of  putting  it  in  referring  to  one 
of  his  characters.  The  Bostonians  was  chosen 
by  Henry  James  as  the  title  for  a  novel  in 
which  he  finds  ample  space  for  elaborate  and 
brilliant  analysis  of  women  of  the  class  of 
Olive  Chancellor,  among-  whom  the  movement 


INTRODUCTORY 

for  the  emancipation  of  their  sex  was  rampant ; 
other  and  equally  strenuous  types  appear  in 
the  pages  of  his  New  England  Winter.  A 
brilliant  literary  and  legal  light  of  Boston, 
Judge  Robert  Grant,  has  purposely  refrained, 
he  says,  from  giving  his  novels  a  Boston  set- 
ting, and  one  looks  in  vain  through  his  fiction 
for  the  streets  and  monuments  of  his  native 
city.  Politically,  Mr.  Crawford  with  An 
American  Politician  and  Mr.  Wainwright 
with  A  Child  of  the  Century  have  the  field 
pretty  much  to  themselves.  Delightful  and 
thoroughly  genuine  are  the  Bostonians  of  Dr. 
Edward  Everett  Hale  and  Mrs.  Louise  Chand- 
ler Moulton,  while  we  turn  to  Mrs.  Harrison 
Gray  Otis's  The  Barclays  of  Boston  for  a  pic- 
ture of  fashionable  life  in  the  Hub  in  the 
fifties.  Other  phases  of  this  and  an  earlier 
period  are  depicted  in  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney's 
fiction  and  in  such  novels  as  Mr.  Stimson's 
Pirate  Gold,  Miss  Cummins's  The  Lamplight- 
er, and  Mr.  Trowbridge's  Martin  Merrivalc. 
The  old  colonial  town,    rich    in    history    and 


INTRODUCTORY 

traditions,  strongly  appealed  as  a  background 
for  romance  to  Hawthorne,  Cooper,  Bynner 
and  Lydia  Child. 

Writers  of  Boston  fiction  have  as  a  rule 
made  use  of  the  actual  street  nomenclature, 
which  greatly  aids  the  rambler  to  discover  in 
fact  or  conjure  up  in  imagination  real  or  ficti- 
tious haunts  and  habitations.  Much  of  this 
nomenclature  is  picturesque  and  interesting  as 
reminiscent  of  the  city's  history.  In  that  part 
of  the  town  known  as  the  North  End  the 
crooked,  narrow,  winding  streets  such  as  Fleet, 
Moon,  Garden  Court,  Prince,  and  Hanover  are 
suggestive  of  the  old  London  so  dear  to  the 
heart  of  the  early  colonists.  Every  Bostonian 
knows  that  Beacon  Hill  and  street  take  their 
name  from  the  old  beacon  erected  in  1634  on 
the  summit  of  the  hill  ;  that  Tremont  Street 
is  from  Traemount  or  Tri-Mountain  which  the 
settlement  was  first  called  ;  that  Shawmut  Av- 
enue gets  its  name  from  the  peninsula.  More 
modern  is  the  broad  avenue  named  for  the  Com- 
monwealth  and   running   across   it  the  street 


INTRODUCTORY 

named  for  the  State.  The  great  Copley  and  the 
lesser  Allston  are  suggestive  of  the  art  world; 
Blackstone,  Franklin,  and  Boylston  are  remem- 
bered while  now  and  then  the  name  of  a  na- 
tional hero  appears  on  the  lamp-posts,  as  in 
the  recent  instance  of  Dewey  Square. 


IN    MODERN    BOSTON 


I.  BEACON  HILL  AND  STREET 

TR  U  E  to  the  traditions  of  the  Bostonese, 
all  the  fiction  writers  of  the  city  pay 
their  tribute  to  the  State  House  with 
its  splendid  gilded  dome,  which  stands  on  the 
summit  of  Beacon  Hill. 

Around  the  green,  in  morning  light, 
The  spired  a?id palaced  summits  blaze, 

And,  sunlike,  from  her  Beacon  height 
The  dome-crowned  city  spreads  her  rays. 

"  High  in  the  air,  poised  in  the  right  place, 
over  everything  that  clustered  below,  the  most 
felicitous  object  in  Boston  - —  the  gilded  dome  of 
the  State  House,"  writes  Henry  James  in 
A  New  England  Winter.  Mrs.  Campbell's  Bal- 
lantyne,  in  her  novel  of  that  name,  returning 
to  Boston  from  the  west,  stretched  his  arms  to 

3 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

the  gilded  dome,  as  if  he  would  embrace  it  and 
all  Boston  at  once.  And  the  Autocrat's  most 
celebrated  saying  is,  "  Boston  State  House  is 
the  hub  of  the  solar  system.  You  couldn't  pry 
that  out  of  a  Boston  man  if  you  had  the  tire  of 
all  creation  straightened  out  for  a  crowbar." 
Again  and  again  he  lovingly  reverts  to  it. 
"  Boston,"  at  another  time  he  writes,  "  has  glor- 
ified her  State  House  and  herself  at  the  expense 
of  a  few  sheets  of  gold-leaf  laid  on  the  dome, 
which  shines  like  a  sun  in  the  eyes  of  her  citi- 
zens, and  like  a  star  in  those  of  the  approach- 
ing traveller." 

Opposite  the  State  House  steps  the  fictional 
rambler  finds  the  impressive  Shaw  monument 
where  Mr.  Pier's  vacillating-  hero  of  The  Senti- 
mentalists  paused  to  ponder  on  the  contrast  of 
the  fine  young  soldier's  life  with  his.  He  had 
come  up  to  the  gray  marble  slab,  says  the 
author,  rising  from  the  edge  of  the  Common. 
"On  the  other  side  of  it  was  the  bas-relief  in 
bronze  of  Robert  Shaw,  leading  his  coloured 
men.     Vernon  had  passed  the  memorial  with- 

4 


Ha*' 


"  High  in  the  air,  poised  in  the  right  place,  over  everything  that 
clustered  below,  the  most  felicitous  object  in  Boston — the  gilded 
dome  of  the  State  House." — Henry  James's  "  New  England 
Winter.'1'' 

"  He  stretched  his  arms  to  the  gilded  dome  as  if  he  wouid  em- 
brace it  and  all  Boston  at  once." — Helen  Campbell' s  "Ballantyjie." 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

out  raising  his  eyes,  but  now  as  he  stood  at  a 
distance,  with  only  a  glimpse  of  the  back  of  the 
monument,  the  form  and  features  of  the  un- 
faltering young  soldier  were  outlined  in  his 
mind,  with  the  thought,  '  And  he  was  not  as 
old  as  I  when  he  died.'  " 

On  the  eastern  side  of  the  State  House  has 
been  erected  a  shaft  to  mark  the  site  of  the  old 
beacon  which  first  threw  its  lisfht  across  the  ad- 
jacent  waters. 

One  stately  summit  from  its  shaft  shall  pour 
Its  deep  red  blaze  along  the  darkened  shore  ; 
Emblem  of  thought,  that,  kindling  far  and  wide. 
In  danger's  7iight  shall  be  a  nation's  guide, 

sings  the  poet  Holmes  in  A  Rhymed  Lesson. 
The  stately  summit  was  frequently  climbed  by 
the  redcoats  of  Cooper's  Lionel  Lincoln  for  a 
better  viewof  the  doino-s  of  the  town.  Here  the 
scene  of  the  novel  opens  in  April,  1775,  with  a 
large  group  of  spectators  spreading  from  its 
conical  summit  far  down  the  eastern  declivity, 
all  gazing  intently  on  a  distant  sail  making 
toward  the  harbour.    Under  the  beacon,  beside 

7 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

the  tall  post  that  supported  the  grate,  Ralph, 


"  One  stately  summit  from  its  shaft  shall  pour 
Its  deep  red  blaze  along  the  darkened  shore  ; 
Emblem  of  thought,  that,  kindling  far  and  wide, 
In  danger's  night  shall  be  a  nation's  guide." — Holmes. 

echoed  by  Job,  reproached  Major  Lincoln  for 
his  loyalty  to  the  King's  cause.  Down  its  steep 
decline,  in  their  childhood,  Lincoln's  cousins, 
Cecil  and  Agnes,  many  a  time  went  coasting. 

s 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

At  the  northeast  corner  of  Beacon  Street, 
across  from  the  State  House,  in  a  house  recently 
torn  down,  lived  the  hero  of  a  Hawthorne  ro- 
mance entitled  My  Kinsman,  Major  Molineux. 
This  tale  is  woven  about  a  zealous  Boston  pa- 
triot named  Molineux  who  died  in  1774,  and 
a  rather  amusing  light  is  thrown  upon  Haw- 
thorne's story  of  him  by  a  contemporary  writer, 
who*  says:  "It  is  a  curious  irony  of  fate  that 
Major  Molineux  should  have  a  false  place  in 
literature  at  the  hands  of  both  Loncrfellow  and 
Hawthorne.  The  despite  done  to  his  memory 
by  the  former  is  less  serious  than  that  of  the 
latter.  In  the  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn  in  the 
prelude,  the  poet  writes  of  the  famous  hostelry  : 

And  flashing  on  the  window  pane, 
Emblazoned  with  its  light  and  shade, 
The  jovial  rhymes  that  still  remain, 
Writ  near  a  century  ago 
By  the  great  Major  Molineux, 
II  horn  Hawthorne  has  immortal  made. 

It  is  not  needed  to  know  the  character  and  po- 
sition of  the  'great  Major'  to  see  that  the 
'  jovial  rhymes'  were  not  written  by  him  but  by 

*  Bates's  Writing  Masters  before  the  Revolution . 

9 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

his  son,  who  signed  his  name  to  them  on  the 
pane.     These  are  the  rhymes  : 

What  do  you  think 
Here  is  good  drink 
Perhaps  you  may  not  know  it. 
If  not  in  haste 
Do  stop  and  taste 
You  merry  folks  will  show  it. 

Boston,  24th  June,  1774, 

Williatn  Molineaux,  Jr. 

Not  long  after  William  Junior  was  roughly 
handled  in  an  altercation  with  some  of  the 
Welsh  troops.  The  sentiments  of  the  family 
were  well  known  to  the  soldiers.  Longfellow 
says  :  '  Whom  Hawthorne  has  immortal  made.' 
If  the  reader  will  turn  to  A  Snow  Image  and 
Other  Twice  Told  Talcs,  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  kind  of  immortality  given  the  '  great  Major ' 
by  Hawthorne  is  of  doubtful  value  ;  in  short, 
it  completely  reverses  his  character  and  sends 
him  down  to  posterity  as  a  hated  Tory,  tarred 
and  feathered  by  outraged  neighbours.  At  the 
culmination  of  his  story  Hawthorne  writes, 
'  Right  before  Robin's  eyes  was  an  uncovered 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

cart.     There  the  torches  blazed  brightest,  there 
the  moon  shone  out  like  day,  and  there  in  tar 


"When  she  came  to  the  Athenaeum,  she  was 
so  tired  that  she  decided  to  take  refuge  beneath 
its  friendly  shelter." — Eliza  Orne  White  s  '■'Miss 
Brooks."1 


and  feathery  dignity  sat  his  kinsman,  Major 
Molineux.'  "    All  of  which  may  be  resented  by 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

the  historian  ;  but  fiction   is  not  fact  and  the 
charm  of  Hawthorne  lies  in  his  romancing. 

East  of  the  site  of  the  Molineux  house  is  the 
Hotel  Bellevue,  where  for  many  years  Louisa 
M.  Alcott  stayed  when  she  came  down  from 
Concord.  Opposite  it  stands  the  jDld  Ath- 
enaeum, soon  to  be  removed  to  the  Back  Bay, 
but  on  its  present  site  a  landmark  and  distinc- 
tive Boston  institution.  This  aristocratic  li- 
brary has  been  frequented  by  many  characters 
in  the  fiction  of  Boston.  Mrs.  Harrison  Gray 
Otis  tells  us  that  old  Mr.  Edgerton  daily  read 
the  newspapers  there ;  Henry  James's  Mrs. 
Daintry  (A  New  England  Winter)  made  re- 
markably free  use  of  it  ;  two  of  his  Bostonians, 
Olive  and  Verena,  in  pursuit  of  their  studies, 
had  innumerable  bi^  books  from  it  ;  in  Hith- 
erto,  Mrs.  Whitney's  Hope  Devine  was  a  little 
bit  shocked  at  standing  face  to  face  with 
some  of  its  statuary,  particularly  the  Venuses, 
and  had  been  half  afraid  of  the  Laocoon.  Ja- 
net Brooks  {Miss  Brooks),  Mary's  younger 
sister,     took    shelter    in     its    vestibule    on    a 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

stormy    day,    and    to    her    infinite    relief    and 


^if^^-^'^'* 


"Nan  lived  in  an  ancestral  home  where  British  officers  had 
danced  stately  minuets  when  Massachusetts  was  a  colony." — Mrs. 
Louise  Chandler  Moulton  s  "Afiss  Eyre.'" 

pleasure  was   there  discovered  later  by  John 
Graham. 

13 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

In  colonial  times  and  until  1863  there  stood 
just  west  of  the  State  House,  in  Beacon  Street, 
the  Hancock  mansion,  than  which,  as  all  who 
recall  it  will  testify,  there  was  never  a  more 
stately  or  picturesque  house.  It  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  beautiful  garden,  and  many  a 
Bostonian  can  yet  sniff  the  delicious  fragrance 
of  the  lilacs  which  clustered  about  the  door 
and  over  the  wall,  perfuming  the  whole  neigh- 
bourhood in  the  spring.  Its  owner,  Hancock, 
its  traditions  and  associations  are  richly  histor- 
ical, and  it  is  not  without  fictional  interest  as 
well.  Hancock  appears  in  the  pages  of  Cham- 
bers's Cardigan,  where  the  hero  thus  describes 
him:  "He  was  young,  handsome,  decidedly 
vain,though  quite  free  from  affectation  of  speech 
or  gesture.  ...  He  wore  an  apple-green  coat, 
white  silk  stockings,  very  large  silver  buckles 
on  his  pumps,  small-clothes  of  silver-net,  tied 
at  the  knees  with  pea-green  ribbons,  which  fell 
to  his  ankles,  and  much  expensive  lace  at  his 
throat  and  cuffs." 

It  is  probable  that  the  Hancock  House  was 
14 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

the  one  Mrs.  Harrison  Gray  Otis  had  in  mind 
in  picturing  Mr.  Edgerton's  home  in  The  Bar- 


a  n 


ill 


"We  turn  away  from  the  old  mansion  so  easily  conjured  up  by 
the  imagination  and  see  in  reality  on  a  low  iron  fence,  a  tablet  which 
marks  the  site  upon  which  it  stood." 

clays  of  Boston.    Calling  it  the  Amory  mansion 
in  Miss  Eyre,  Mrs.  Louise  Chandler  Moulton 

15 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

also  uses  it  as  a  setting  for  her  Nan  Amory, 
who  "  lived  in  an  ancestral  home  where  Brit- 
ish officers  had  danced  stately  minuets  when 
Massachusetts  was  a  colony."  Nan  is  intro- 
duced to  us  in  the  thick  of  Theosophical  win- 
ter. "  It  always  is  the  something  winter  in 
that  wonderful  city,"  says  Mrs.  Moulton,  "but 
perhaps  nothing  else  had  ever  taken  hold  of  it 
as  did  Theosophy.  If  you  went  out  to  drink 
five-o'clock  tea  and  shake  hands  with  your 
neighbours,  you  found  the  company  broken  up 
into  groups,  and  in  the  centre  of  each  one 
some  eloquent  woman  discoursing  of  reincar- 
nation, and  Karma,  and  Devachan."  Reluct- 
antly we  turn  away  from  the  old  mansion,  so 
easily  conjured  up  by  the  imagination,  and  see 
in  reality  on  a  low  iron  fence  a  tablet  which 
marks  the  site  upon  which  it  stood. 

A  few  steps  up  the  street,  in  a  house  now 
occupied  by  Dr.  Paul,  we  can  imagine  dear  lit- 
tle Mildred  Wentworth  (T.  B.  Aldrich's  A 
Christmas  Phantasy)  in  her  blue  room  over- 
looking the  Common,  having  her  deliciously 

16 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

fantastic  day-dreams  in  the  midst  of  her  new 
Christmas  toys.    Farther  down  the  hill,  at  No. 


"  In  her  blue  room  overlooking  the  Common 
was  little  Mildred  Wentworth  in  the  midst  of  her 
Christmas  toys." — T.  B.  Aldriclis  "  Christmas 
Fantasy ." 

40,  is  the  stoop  where  Margaret  Allston  had 
one  of  the  first  of  Her  Boston  Experiences, 
and  which  house,  she  says,  is  in  the  one  block 

17 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

in  that  locality  where  certain  families  honour- 
ably continue  their  ancestral  line. 

In  this  part  of  Beacon  Street  lived  May 
Calthorpe,  that  diverting  young  woman  in 
Mr.  Bates's  Love  In  a  Cloud.  "  The  dwell- 
ing was  rather  a  gloomy  nest  for  so  bright  a 
bird  as  May.  Respectability  of  the  most  aus- 
tere New  England  type  pervaded  the  big 
drawing-room.  The  heavy  old  furniture  was 
as  ugly  as  original  sin,  and  the  pictures  might 
have  ministered  to  the  Puritan  hatred  for  art. 
Little  was  changed  from  the  days  when  May's 
grandparents  had  furnished  their  abode  ac- 
cording to  the  most  approved  repulsiveness  of 
their  time.  Only  the  brightness  of  the  warm 
April  sun  shining  in  at  the  windows,  and  a  big 
bunch  of  dark  red  roses  in  a  crystal  jug,  light- 
ened the  formality  of  the  stately  apartment." 

In  the  middle  of  this  block  is  the  vine-cov- 
ered, ultra-exclusive  Somerset  Club,  where 
Warren  Hartwell  put  in  half  his  days  before 
he  met  Margaret  Allston.  It  was  also  the 
rendezvous  of   Marion  Crawford's  American 


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19 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Politician  and  his  friends,  one  of  whom,  Van- 
couver, was  particularly  fond  of  standing-  in 
one  of  the  semi-circular  windows  and  watching 
the  passers-by.  At  the  corner  below  is  the 
smaller  Puritan  Club,  likewise  a  haunt  of 
Warren  Hartwell's  ;  and  of  Vernon  Kent,  one 
of  the  sentimentalists  in  Mr.  Pier's  novel  of 
that  name.  The  atmosphere  of  this  locality 
is  sympathetically  expressed  by  the  heroine  of 
Her  Boston  Experiences,  who  says  she  "  al- 
ways peers  around  for  a  fleeting  glance  of 
Priscillas,  John  Aldens,  or  other  far-away  peo- 
ple who  rightfully  belong  among  those  quaint 
old  houses,  still  breathing  out  history  and  ro- 
mance." 

II.    THE    WEST    END 

FOR  the  western  and  northern  slopes  of 
Beacon    Hill    many    novelists    have  a 
strong  predilection,  notably  Mr.  How- 
ells,  who,  particularly  on  the  northern  side  of 
the  hill,  finds  in  the  homely  life  of  the  unfash- 
ionable  residents  ample  material  for  the  por- 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

trayal  of  certain  types  of  Bostonians  which  he 
presents  to  us  with  such  fidelity.  These  are 
"those  old-fashioned  thoroughfares  at  the  West 
End  of  Boston  which  are  now  almost  wholly 
abandoned  to  boarding-houses  of  the  poorer 
classes.  Yet  they  are  charming  streets,"  and 
in  them  lived  the  Hallecks,  the  Hubbards  (A 
Modern  Instance),  Lemuel  Barker  {The  Min- 
ister s  Charge),  Dr.  Olney,  Rhoda  Aldgate 
and  Mrs.  Meredith  {An  Imperative  Duty), 
and  many  other  of  Mr.  Howells's  fictitious  char- 
acters. Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney,  too,  is  partial 
to  this  locality  with  its  "  streets  of  charming 
houses  without  any  modern  improvements  over 
behind  Beacon  Hill,  and  beyond  the  State 
House.  In  her  recent  story,  Miss  Theodora, 
Helen  Leah  Reed  gives  us  a  delightful  series 
of  pictures  of  the  old  West  End. 

Number  9  Beacon  Steps  (Howells's  A  Wo- 
man's Reason)  is  given  as  the  residence  of 
Joshua  Harkness  and  his  daughter  Helen. 
"  The  house  was  rather  old-fashioned,  and  it 
was   not  furnished   in   the  latest  taste,  but  it 


• 


"BEACON    STEPS." HOWELLS'S    "A    WOMAN'S    REASON." 

"  Streets  of  charming-  houses  over  behind  Beacon  Hill  and  beyond 
the  State  House." — Mrs.  A.  D.   T.    Whitney  s  "JfitAerto." 


23 


IN      AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

made  the  appeal  with  which  things  out  of  date 
or  passing  out  of  date  touch  the  heart."  Bea- 
con Steps  is  not  Beacon  Street,  says  Mr. 
Howells  in  the  novel,  "  but  it  is  of  like  blame- 
less social  tradition." 

As  an  actual  street  it  never  had  any  exist- 
ence in  fact,  but  the  name  was  suggested  to 
Mr.  Howells  by  a  short  flight  of  steps  which 
lead  down  from  the  State  House  to  Temple 
Street,  and  though  no  definite  house  was  in- 
tended, this  was  the  locality  he  had  in  mind. 
In  another  of  his  novels,  A  Modern  Instance, 
his  Clover  Street  is  in  reality  Myrtle  Street, 
where,  a  few  doors  from  Joy  Street,  is  the  little 
house  rented  by  the  Bartley  Hubbards.  "It 
seemed  absurdly  large  to  people  who  had  been 
living  for  the  past  seven  months  in  one  room  ; 
and  the  view  of  the  Back  Bay  from  the  little 
bow-window  of  the  front  chamber  added  all  out- 
doors to  their  superfluous  space."  To  the  east 
of  them,  at  63  Hancock  Street,  is  the  boarding- 
house  to  which  Janet  ( Eliza  Orne  White's  Miss 
Brooks}  came  in  search  of  young  Rheinhart. 

25 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Passing  down  Derne  Street  and  through 
Bowdoin  Street,  we  come  to  Bulfinch  Place, 
on  the  right,  called  Canary  Place  by  Mr. 
Howells,  who  finds  lodgings  there  for  the 
Bartley  Hubbards  shortly  after  they  came  to 
Boston.  Here,  too,  on  the  southern  side  of 
the  street,  is  the  Hotel  Waterson,  described 
in  The  Minister  s  Charge  as  the  St.  Albans, 
where  Barker  worked  in  various  capacities  un- 
til (in  the  novel)  the  hotel  burned.  North  of 
this,  in  Bowdoin  Square,  is  the  Revere  House, 
in  and  around  which  transpires  much  of  An 
Imperative  Duty.  The  Bartley  Hubbards  also 
stopped  at  this  hotel,  where  Bartley  entered 
his  name  on  the  register  with  a  flourish.  Bril- 
liantly lighted  Bowdoin  Square  and  the  high- 
pillared  portico  of  the  Revere  House  were  also 
wonderingly  observed  on  his  wanderings  by 
Barker's  The  Minister  s  Charge.  This  hotel 
was  one  much  patronized  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Howells  during  their  residence  in  Belmont 
when,  attending  social  functions  or  the  theatre 
in  Boston,   they  found  it  more  convenient  to 

26 


IN      AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

spend  the   night  in   town.     "  Some  colour  of 
my  prime  impressions  has  tinged  the  fictitious 


"That  commodious  nook  which  is  known  as 
Mount  Vernon  Place."' — Henry  James 's  "A  ATew 
England  Winter." 

experiences  of  people  in  my  books,"  Mr.  How- 
ells  says  in  his  Literary  Friends  and  Ac- 
quaintances. 

If  we  now  climb  "  those  up-hill  streets  that 
converge  to  the  State  House,"  and  stop  at  the 

27 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

top  of  the  Hill,  we  come  directly  under  the 
shadow  of  the  dome,  to  "  that  commodious 
nook  which,  is  known  as  Mt.  Vernon  Place,"  in 


41  MOUNT  VERNON   STREET — THE  HOME  OF  MRS. 
HARRISON  GRAY  OTIS 


which  resided  Henry  James's  Miss  Lucretia 
Daintry  {A  New  England  Winter^) — delightful 
Miss  Lucretia,  "who  wore  her  bonnet  as  scien- 
tifically poised  as  the  dome  of  the  State  House, 
and  had  in  an  eminent  degree  the  physiog- 
nomy, the  accent,  the  costume,  the  conscience, 
and  the  little  eyeglass  of  her  native  place." 

23 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 


48  MOUNT  VERNON   STREET THE  HOME  OF  THE 

COREYS 

"  The  whole  place  wears  an  air  of  aristocratic 
seclusion." — Howells 's  "Rise  of  Silas  Lapham." 


North    of    this    "nook"  is    Mount  Vernon 
Street,  in  which  lived  an  astonishing  number 

29 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

of  fictitious  persons,  whose  literary  creators 
give  it  a  preference  over  Beacon  Street  as  an 
aristocratic,  residential  thoroughfare.  A  fine 
old  house,  Number  41,  at  the  corner  of  Joy 
Street,  was  the  home  of  Miss  MehitableOuincy, 
whom  we  meet  in  Mrs.  Louise  Chandler  Moul- 
ton's  Miss  Eyre.  This  house  has  interest  in 
fact  as  well  as  fiction,  for  here  lived  that  bril- 
liant woman,  novelist  and  social  leader,  Mrs. 
Harrison  Gray  Otis,  who  wrote  The  Barclays 
of  Boston  there. 

A  few  doors  down  on  the  same  side  of  the 
street  is  Number  48,  the  home  of  the  Coreys 
(Howells's  The  Rise  of  Silas  Laphani).  This 
house  is  now  a  small  hotel  called  the  Curtis,  but 
was  formerly  the  home  of  one  of  Mr.  Howells's 
friends,  and  its  entrance  and  part  of  the  inter- 
ior remain  as  when  he  knew  and  described  it. 
To  many,  Bromfield  Corey  is  by  far  the  most 
delightful  of  Mr.  Howells's  creations,  and  it  is 
with  pleasure  that  we  meet  him  in  more  than 
one  of  the  author's  books.  No  one  forgets 
that  memorable  dinner  given  for  the  Laphams 

30 


S  ? 


rt  En 

.a  -> 

—  -s 


3i 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

by  the  Coreys,  in  the  reading  of  which  we  can 
scarcely  be  made  to  believe  that  we  are  not 
actually  attending  it,  so  strong  is  Mr.  How- 
ells's  realistic  touch.  Familiar  with  the  dining 
room  we  are  keenly  interested  in  the  rest  of 
the  house,  and  delighted  when  we  are  permit- 
ted by  the  author  to  wander  into  Mr.  Corey's 
sanctum,  the  library,  where  Lemuel  Barker 
(The  Ministers  Charge)  "found  himself 
dropped  in  the  midst  of  a  luxury  stranger  than 
the  things  they  read  of  in  those  innumerable 
novels.  The  dull,  rich  colours  on  the  walls, 
the  heavily  rugged  floors  and  dark  wooded 
leathern  seats  of  the  library  where  he  read  to 
the  old  man  ;  the  beautiful  forms  of  the  famous 
bronzes,  and  the  Italian  saints  and  martyrs  in 
their  baroque  or  Gothic  frames  of  dim  p-old-  the 
low  shelves  with  their  ranks  of  luxurious  bind- 
ings, and  all  the  seriously  elegant  keeping 
of  the  place  flattered  him  out  of  his  strange- 
ness." Corey,  at  this  time,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  alone  at  home  while  his  family  were 
at  the  shore,  because  he  "  would  rather  be  blind 

33 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 

in  Boston  than  telescopic  at  Beverly  or  any 
other  summer  resort." 

Looking  down  from  the  Coreys,  we  get  a 
most  beautiful  view  of  "  the  perfect  Gothic 
arch  formed  by  the  trees  that  line  both  sides 
of  Mount  Vernon  Street"  (Helen  Reed's  Miss 
Theodora).  At  Number  59,  at  the  top  of  the 
hill,  we  find  the  home  of  the  poet  and  novelist, 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich.  His  near  neighbour 
is  the  imaginary  Mrs.  Buskirk  (Pier's  The 
Sentimentalists),  who  lives  in  one  of  this  "  row 
of  stately  fine  old  houses,  with  little  plots  of 
lawn  in  front  and  high  iron  fences  ;  they  were 
of  four  high-ceilinged  stories  with  well-propor- 
tioned bay-windows  and  deep  vestibules,  in 
which  were  tall  jars  of  plants  and  palms."  In 
his  Two  Bites  at  a  Cherry,  Mr.  Aldrich  speaks 
of  crisp  crocuses  blooming  in  these  little  front 
yards  in  the  spring. 

Mr.  Arlo  Bates  rarely  has  an  actual  house  in 
mind  in  describing  residences,  but  so  real  to 
him  are  the  homes  of  his  characters  that  he 
has  fallen  into  the  way,  he  says,  of  inserting  an 

34 


■&#**AM 


35 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

imaginary  house  in  the  desired  locality.  So, 
though  the  fiction  rambler  may  not  literally 
number  them,  he  can  pretty  safely  conclude 
that  in  this  block  of  Mount  Vernon  Street 
lived  Mrs.  Gore  {The  Puritans),  in  whose 
drawing-room  occurred  the  Persian  reading 
when  "  Persian  was  the  latest  ethical  caprice," 
and  one  of  the  forms  of  the  "  ethical  jugglery, 
the  spiritual  and  intellectual  gymnastics  such 
as  the  Bostonians  love."  Here  we  also  find 
"  the  iron  gate  which,  between  stately  stone 
posts,  shuts  off  the  domain  of  the  Frostwinches 
(The  Puritans)  from  the  world,  and  marked 
with  dignity  the  line  between  the  dwellers  on 
Mount  Vernon  Street,  and  the  rest  of  the 
world."  If  we  follow  Ashe  and  Mrs.  Fenton 
into  the  drawing-room  of  this  house,  we  enter 
"  an  apartment  whose  very  walls  were  incrusted 
with  conservative  traditions.  .  .  .  The  chief 
decoration,  one  felt,  was  the  air  of  the  place's 
having  been  inhabited  by  generations  of  so- 
cially immaculate  Boston  ancestors.  There 
was  a  savor  of  lineage  amounting  almost  to 

37 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

godliness  in  the  dark,  self-contained  parlours  ; 
and  if  pedigree  were  not  in  this  dwelling  im- 
puted for  righteousness,  it  was  evidently  held 
in  becoming  reverence  as  the  first  of  virtues." 

In  this  exclusive  neighbourhood  must  have 
lived  Peter  Calvin  (The  Philistines),  "  a 
wealthy  and  well-meaning  man  against  whom 
but  two  grave  charges  could  be  made — that 
he  supposed  the  growth  of  art  in  this  country 
to  depend  largely  upon  his  patronage,  and  that 
he  could  never  be  persuaded  not  to  take  him- 
self seriously.  Mr.  Calvin  was  regarded  by 
Philistine  circles  in  Boston  as  a  sort  of  re-in- 
carnation of  Apollo,  clothed  upon  with  modern 
enlightenment,  and  properly  arrayed  in  re- 
spectable raiment." 

Judge  Rathmire,  whose  fortunes  were  so 
closely  intermingled  with  The  Curse  of  the 
Old  South  Church,  is  described  in  that  novel 
as  living  in  splendid  style  in  Mount  Vernon 
Street.  A  view  of  the  charming  block  of 
houses  before  which  we  have  been  loitering 
was  to  be  had  by  the  Kents  ( Pier's  The  Senti- 

3§ 


39 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

mentalists),  who  lived   directly  opposite   in   a 
thin,    flat-fronted    house    by  which    Mr.    Pier 


7  *< 

n^mmt^mmmax*  i 

~           ^«< 

■ 

I 

H^lif 

Pi    '  'f 

; 

"^"Dl] 

I                       ■"*"        If 

»>j**" »- 

■K    1       t^r-M 

™ 

--fl 

.1 

i 

i  J 

Si '  -m  V  i 

■          ■•■  —  ,,*.. 

i--i  ipi  sj 

'. 

S****^           «S3«EfeJ«WSi|       g 

Safest 

82  MOUNT  VERNON  STREET — THE  HOME  OF 
THE  RANDOLPHS 

"  He  had  almost  reached  their  house  when  he 
saw  a  slender  girl  coming  down  the  steps." — 
Miss   White's  "Miss  Brooks." 

meant  anyone  of  the  several  that  answers  to 
this  description.  Below  the  Kents  on  the  same 
side  of  the  street  at   Number  82,  is  the  house 

41 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

in  which    the   creator   of    the    happy-go-lucky 
Randolphs  (Miss  White's  Miss  Brooks)   im- 


"  One  of  the  last  spells  of  the  past  was  lifted 
for  him  when  he  saw  strange  faces  looking'  out 
of  those  sun-purpled  window-panes," — T.  B- 
Aldricti s  "  Two  Bites  at  a  Cherry," 

agined  them  as  living.  Here  the  Brooks  girls 
stayed  with  their  sister  when  they  were  in  town, 
while  on  the  steps  of  this  house  Janet  had  that 
chance  encounter  with  John  which  so  changed 
the  current  of  her  life. 

42 


■J:  -«i 

'3  S- 
o  ft 


43 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

John  T.  Wheelwright,  to  whose  Child  of 
the  Century  we  have  made  allusion,  lives  at 
Number  99  Mount  Vernon  Street,  and  wander- 
ing from  here  through  Willow  and  into  Chest 
nut  Street  we  find  a  few  steps  up  the  hill  a 
beautiful  and  well-preserved  old  house  which 
answers  to  the  description  of  the  home  of 
Rose  Jenness  in  Aldrich's  Two  Bites  at  a 
Cherry.  Whitelaw,  the  hero  of  this  story,  re- 
turning to  Boston  after  fifteen  years'  absence, 
found  "  people  whom  nobody  knew  occupied 
the  old  mansion.  One  of  the  last  spells  of  the 
past  was  lifted  for  him  when  he  saw  strange 
faces  looking  out  of  those  sun-purpled  window- 
panes."  This  picturesque,  vine-covered  resi- 
dence was  at  one  time  the  home  of  Edwin 
Booth,  and  is  now  used  as  a  private  school  for 
boys. 

Returning  through  Willow  Street  and  cross- 
ing  Mount  Vernon  we  come  into  quaint  old 
Louisburg  Square,  where,  on  the  south  side  we 
find  the  former  homes,  a  few  doors  apart,  of 
Louisa  M.  Alcott  and  Mr.  Howells.    At  Num- 

45 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

ber  2    Silas   Lapham   and    his  associates  first 
came   into   being,   though    the    book  was  not 


73  PINCKNEY  STREET THE  HOME  OF  THE  LACYS 

completed  until  after  the  novelist  had  moved 
to  Beacon  Street.  In  this  Square  John  (Mrs. 
Campbell's  Ballantyne)  found  charming  Mrs. 
LeBaron  living  ;   and  overlooking  the  Square, 

46 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

in  Pinckney  Street,  was  Marion's  former  home, 
where  years  later,  advised  by  Mrs.  Le Baron, 
Ballantyne  found  lodgings  in  the  then  "  anti- 
modern  street."  This  house  is  Number  73, 
given  over  to  boarders  or  lodgers,  among 
whom  one  mieht  have  discovered  Craighead 
(  Truth  Dexter)  before  he  married. 

The  character  of  this  once  aristocratic  street 
is  in  these  days  very  similar  to  the  change  in 
other  parts  of  the  Hill.  This  is  remarked 
upon  by  Anna  Farquhar  {Her  Boston  Experi- 
ences), who  says  that  this  is  the  section  reputed 
to  be  Bohemia.  "  The  majority  of  the  old 
homes  in  Pinckney  Street  are  converted  into 
lodging-houses,  although  a  few  professional 
families  still  occupy  an  entire  house  apiece. 
There  are  to  be  found  rooming  spinsters  of 
Mayflower  descent,  generally  poor  connec- 
tions of  the  same  families  residing  in  Beacon 
Street  not  far  away,  ■ —  near  enough  to  mention 
frequently  and  intimately  ;  musicians ;  news- 
paper people  ;  painters  ;  incipient  authors  and 
a    few  full-fledged ;  teachers  ;  composers  ;   im- 

47 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

pecunious  youths  with  high  spirits  and  one 
'  dress  suit '  among  several ;  female  typewriters 
and  private  secretaries.  Here  is  the  freedom  of 
the  Latin  Quarter,  with  but  a  small  amount  of 
its  license.  ...  In  truth,  this  Boston  Bohemia 
stands  for  good  spirits  and  innocent  uncon- 
ventionally, and  is  several  times  more  virtuous 
than  Boston  society,  no  matter  how  pretentious- 
ly and  flamboyantly  the  little  country  tries  to 
disprove  its  virtue." 

This  is  the  atmosphere  of  that  recent  and 
brilliant  Boston  novel,  Margaret  Warrener, 
thougrh  it  is  evident  that  the  author,  Miss  Alice 
Brown,  is  purposely  vague  in  locating  that  in- 
teresting colony  which  she  calls  Babine.  And 
in  Pinckney  Street,  we  are  sure,  was  the  cosy 
third  floor  sitting-room  of  that  splendid  woman 
and  sculptor,  Helen  Greyson  (Arlo  Bates's 
The  Pagans).  "  The  apartment,"  we  are  told 
in  the  opening  paragraph  of  the  novel,  "  was 
evidently  that  of  a  woman,  as  numerous  details 
of  arrangement  and  articles  of  feminine  use 
suggested ;  and  quite  as  evidently  it  was  the 

4S 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

home  of  a  person  of  taste  and  refinement,  and 
of  one,  too,  who  had  traveled." 

III.  THE  CHARLES   STREET  NEIGH- 
BOURHOOD 

FROM  the  western  slope  of  Beacon  Hill, 
where,  as  Emerson  sings, 

"  Each  street  leads  downward  to  the  sea, — " 

we  come  down  into  Charles  Street  and  a  local- 
ity closely  identified  with  the  fiction  of  Arlo 
Bates,  Henry  James,  Howells  and  other  lesser 
literary  lights.  At  the  period  of  which  Henry 
James  writes  in  The  Bostonians  Charles  Street 
was  a  place  of  semi-fashionable  residences,  one 
of  which  is  described  by  the  novelist  as  the 
home  of  Olive  Chancellor.  To-day,  like  the 
adjacent  streets,  it  is  largely  given  over  to 
boardino-  and  lodo-ino-  houses,  so  that  it  is  nat- 
ural  in  many  novels  to  find  masculine  charac- 
ters lodging  there. 

To  enter  it  from  Beacon  Street  we  find  a 
few  doors  along  the  identical  little  Italian  fruit 
shop   where   Graham   first  saw   Mary    Brooks 

49 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


AFRICAN  METHODIST  CHURCH 
68   CHARLES  STREET 


(Eliza  Orne  White's 
Miss  Brooks).  "His 
eyes  were  arrested  by 
the  rich  colouring  of 
the  red  apples  and 
yellow  oranges,  which 
showed  off  to  especial 
advantage  in  juxta- 
position to  the  large 

' '  She   wished    densely    to   sur- 
bunches       of       purple      round   herself  with   the   blackness 

from   which    she    had    sprung," — 
and       greeil       grapes,      Howellss  "An  Imperative  Duty" 

and  the  dusky  red  bananas  that  hung  from 
the  walls  in  great  clusters.  The  dim  gaslight 
gave  a  semi  -  obscurity  to  the  place,  so  that 
its  ugly  features  were  softened,  and  Graham 
thought  of  certain  Dutch  paintings  he  had 
seen  abroad.  Into  this  commonplace  back- 
ground there  presently  stepped  a  figure  radi- 
ant with  life  and  colour.  .  .  .  Suddenly  the 
poor  little  shop  was  transformed,  and  Graham 
thought  of  Una,  whose  face  '  made  a  sunshine 
in  the  shady  place.'  " 

He   followed  her  from  the  shop  up   Mount 
50 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  ADVENT 
AND  CLERGY   HOUSE,   BRIM- 
MER STREET 


Vernon  Street  to  her 
sister's  home,  it  will  be 
remembered,  but  we 
detach  ourselves  from 
them  at  the  corner  to 
take  a  passing  glance 
at  the  African  Metho- 
dist Church,  a  rather 
picturesque  edifice  to 

"The    church    was   appointed      which      Rhoda     (HoW- 
with  a  richness  beautiful  to  see." 
— Arlo  Bates  s  "Puritans."  e  1  1  S  '  S    Imperative 

Duty),  sick  with  the  sudden  knowledge  that 
she  was  of  negro  blood,  was  led  to  a  meet- 
ing  by  an  old  coloured  woman.  "  She  had  no 
motive  in  being  where  she  was  except  to 
confront  herself  as  fully  and  closely  with  the 
trouble  in  her  soul  as  she  could  .  .  .  she 
wished  densely  to  surround  herself  with  the 
blackness  from  which  she  had  sprung,  and  to 
reconcile  herself  to  it  by  realizing  and  owning 
it  with  every  sense." 

West  of  this  church,  clustering  at  the  water's 
edge,  is  the  exclusive  Brimmer  Street  quarter, 

51 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

which  tiny  section,  a  novelist  has  said,  covers 
more  of  the  real  wit,  wisdom  and  worldliness 
than  any  one  other  part  of  Boston.  Here,  in 
one  of  the  whimsical  little  streets,  amid  some 
strictly  Sabbatarian  and  conventional  families, 
and  the  quality  of  the  artistic  life,  lived  the 
Lesters,  an  evening  at  whose  house  was  among 
Margaret  Allston's  Boston  Experiences.  Here, 
too,  we  find  the  Church  of  the  Advent,  with 
its  Clergy  House,  which,  under  the  thin  dis- 
guise of  the  Nativity,  plays  a  conspicuous 
part  in  Arlo  Bates's  novel,  The  Piiritans. 
Every  one  will  recall  the  dramatic  description 
of  the  midnight  service  at  the  Nativity.  "  The 
music  on  this  occasion  was  most  elaborate, 
the  very  French  millinery  of  sacred  music.  .  .  . 
The  church,  moreover,  was  appointed  with 
a  richness  beautiful  to  see.  The  vestments 
might  have  moved  the  envy  of  high  Roman 
prelates,  and  the  altar  plate  shone  in  gold  and 
precious  stones."  The  Father  Superior  of  the 
Clergy  House,  in  which  lived  Maurice  Wynne 
and    Philip    Ashe,    of  the    novel,  was  Father 

52 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Frontford,  whom  Mr.  Bates  stoutly  denies 
having  drawn  from  the  actual  incumbent. 
Mr.  Bates  says  he  has  drawn  but  one  char- 
acter from  life,  and  that  was  Dr.  Ashton  of 
The  Pagans,  whose  identity  was  unsuspected 
save  by  the  prototype  and  his  fiancee.  But 
such  genius  has  this  author  for  depicting  the 
Bostonese  as  he  really  is  that  there  is  no  one 
of  his  fictitious  characters  who  has  not  been 
fitted  by  the  public  to  some  prominent  person. 
This  has  been  both  amusing  and  annoying  to 
Mr.  Bates,  whose  tribulations  in  this  line  were 
undoubtedly  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  Love  in 
a  Cloud,  in  which  he  takes  occasion  to  remark 
that  "If  the  scene  of  a  novel  be  laid  in  a  pro- 
vincial city,  its  characters  must  all  be  identified. 
That  is  the  first  intellectual  duty  of  the  readers 
of  fiction.  To  look  at  a  novel  from  a  critical 
point  of  view  is  no  longer  in  the  least  a  thing 
about  which  any  reader  need  concern  himself  ; 
b:.t  it  would  be  an  omission  unpardonably  stu- 
pid were  he  to  remain  unacquainted  with  some 
original  under  the  disguise  of  every  character." 

53 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


Near  the  Church  of  the  Advent,  in  Brimmer 
Street,  stands  the  bachelor  apartment  where 
Bellingham  lived  (The  Ministers  Charge), 
the  delightful  interior  of  which  Mr.  Howells 
pictures  for  us  most  charmingly  on  the 
morning  Barker  breakfasted  there. 

To  turn  from  here 


into  Charles  Street 
again  we  come  upon 
the  block  of  houses 
in  one  of  which  lived 
Olive  Chancellor 
(Henry  James's  The 
Bostonians).  After 
Verona  came  to  live 
with  Olive,  this  was 
the  only  spot  in 
Charles  Street  that  had  any  significance  for 
Ransom,  the  Mississippian,  whom  we  first  meet 
in  Olive's  drawine-room  tete-a-tete  with  her 
sister,  Mrs.  Luna,  who  flippantly  explains  to 
him  that  Olive  is  "a  female  Jacobin — a  nihilist, 
consorting  with  witches  and  wizards,  mediums 

54 


CHARLES  STREET 

" — he  heard  the  door  open 
within  the  deep  embrasure  in 
which,  in  Charles  Street,  the  main 
portals  are  set." — James's  "The 
Bostonians" 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

and  spirit-rappers  and  roaring-  radicals."  Olive 
had  the  good  fortune  to  dwell  on  that  side 
of  Charles  Street  toward  which,  in  the  rear, 
"the  afternoon  sun  slants  redly  .  .  .  over 
a  brackish  expanse  of  anomalous  character 
which  is  too  big  for  a  river  and  too  small  for 
a  bay." 

This  was  also  the  view  to  be  seen  from  Gra- 
ham's chambers  {Miss  Brooks),  which  were 
high  in  a  house  across  the  way  and  farther 
down,  at  Number  127.  These  lodgings,  as 
described  by  Miss  Eliza  Orne  White,  were  the 
actual  rooms  of  her  friend,  Miss  Lucretia  Hale, 
a  sister  of  Edward  Everett  Hale,  who  loved 
her  view  out  over  the  water,  but  commonly 
found,  as  did  Graham,  that  her  friends  objected 
to  the  coal  sheds  in  the  foreground.  Mary, 
the  heroine  of  Miss  Brooks,  when  she  came  to 
the  tea  John  gave  in  his  chambers,  "went  to 
the  window,  from  which  a  pale  gray  strip  of 
Charles  River  could  be  seen  in  the  distance, 
with  the  spires  and  houses  of  Cambridge  rising 
above  it,  and  looking  in  the  misty  atmosphere 

55 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

like  a  blurred  charcoal  sketch.  Her  attention, 
however,  was  riveted  by  some  coal  sheds  that 
loomed  up  conspicuously  in  the  foreground. 
'  You  like  your  view  because  it  is  your  dispo- 
sition to  make  the  best  of  things,'  she  said. 
'  Instead  of  looking  facts  squarely  in  the  face 
you  idealize  them.  If  I,  for  instance,  with  my 
different  temperament,  were  in  your  place,  I 
should  say  plainly,  '  Those  coal  sheds  are  hid- 
eous ;  they  spoil  my  view.' "  Graham,  not 
drawn  as  a  Bostonian,  but  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightful men  in  Boston  fiction,  is  a  composite 
sketch  from  two  western  relatives  of  the  au- 
thor—  one  middle-aged  and  the  other  a  young 
man  from  whose  combined  characteristics  she 
modelled  her  hero. 

Before  he  married  and  became  a  United 
States  Senator,  John  Harrington  (Crawford's 
An  American  Politician)  had  rooms  in  Charles 
Street,  and  though  Miss  Eugenia  Brooks 
Frothingham  is  vague  as  to  locality,  it  is  safe 
to  surmise — since  it  is  the  usual  abiding-place 
of  Boston  bachelors  in  fiction — that  Dan  and 

56 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Garrison   (VVw    Turn   of  the  Road)   had  their 
apartment  there. 

At  Number  164,  on  the  water  side  of  the 
street,  once  lived  the  Autocrat  whose  library 
windows  overlooked  the  basin  of  the  Charles 
— a  view  from  which  he  drew  perpetual  inspi- 
ration. He  found  the  water  craft  a  source  of 
endless  interest,  and  the  contemplation  of  them 
caused  him  to  write  this  noble  tribute  to  wo- 
man :  "  I  have  seen  a  tall  ship  glide  by  against 
the  tide,  as  if  drawn  by  some  invisible  tow-line, 
with  a  hundred  strong  arms  pulling  it.  Her 
sails  hung  unfilled,  her  streamers  were  droop- 
ing ;  she  had  neither  side-wheel  nor  stern- 
wheel,  still  she  moved  on  stately,  as  if  with 
her  own  life.  But  I  knew  that  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ship,  hidden  beneath  the  great  hulk 
that  swam  so  majestically,  there  was  a  little 
toilinof  steam-tuof  with  heart  of  fire  and  arms 
of  iron,  that  was  huof^m^  it  close  and  dras:- 
ging  it  bravely  on  ;  and  I  knew  that  if  the 
little  steam-tuor  untwined  her  arms  and  left  the 
tall   ship,  it  would  wallow  and  roll  about,  and 

57 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

drift  hither  and  thither,  and  go  off  with  the 
refluent  tide,  no  man  knows  whither.  And  so 
I  have  known  more  than  one  genius,  high- 
decked,  full-freighted,  wide-sailed,  gay-pen- 
noned,  that,  but  for  the  bare,  toiling  arms  and 
brave,  warm,  beating  heart  of  the  faithful  little 
wife  that  nestled  close  in  his  shadow,  and  clung 
to  him,  so  that  no  wind  or  wave  could  part 
them,  and  drao-Qfed  him  on  against  all  the  tide 
of  circumstance,  would  soon  have  gone  down 
the  stream  and  been  heard  of  no  more." 

Nearby,  at  148,  we  find  an  interesting  liter- 
ary centre  in  the  home  of  Mrs.  James  T.  Fields, 
who  lingers  on  in  the  old  house  so  full  of  as- 
sociations. Not  the  least  of  the  charms  of  this 
house,  the  front  of  which  presents  a  common- 
place exterior  to  the  passer-by,  is  the  deep 
garden  at  the  rear,  with  its  benches  and  trees 
and  shrubs  and  flowers,  and  always  at  its  edge 
that  bit  of  the  sea  known  to  the  Bostonese  as 
"the  river"  or  "the  bay,"  beloved  by  Mrs. 
Fields  and  felt  in  many  of  the  stories  of  Sarah 
Orne  Jewett,  who  spends  much  time  with  her. 

58 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Quaint  and  elaborately  designed  landscape 
screens  are  to  be  found  in  most  of  the  win- 
dows of  the  Charles  Street  residences — a 
mark  as  distinctive  of  this  neighbourhood  as 
are  the  purple  window-panes  of  Beacon  Hill. 

Beautiful  gardens  were  not  uncommon  at 
the  West  End  when  Mr.  Howells  first  knew 
Boston,  and  not  far  from  Mrs.  Fields,  in  lower 
Pinckney  Street,  which  he  calls  Rumford,  he 
pictures  in  A  Modern  Instance  a.  charming  one. 
"  Mrs.  Halleck  liked  better  than  mountain  or 
sea  the  high-walled  garden  that  stretched  back 
of  their  house  to  the  next  street.  .  .  .  They 
laid  it  out  in  box-bordered  beds,  and  there  were 
clumps  of  hollyhocks,  sunflowers,  lilies  and 
phlox  in  different  corners  ;  grapes  covered  the 
trellised  walls  ;  there  were  some  pear  trees  that 
bore  blossoms,  and  sometimes  ripened  their 
fruit  beside  the  walk."  It  was  Halleck,  it  will 
be  remembered,  who  said :  "  I  don't  think 
there  is  any  place  quite  so  well  worth  being 
born  in  as  Boston.  It's  more  authentic  and 
individual,  more   municipal   after  the  old   pat- 

59 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

tern,  than  any  other  modern  city.  Even  Bos- 
ton provinciality  is  a  precious  testimony  to  the 
authoritative  personality  of  the  city." 

At  the  end  of  Charles  Street,  stretching 
northward  across  the  water,  is  the  bridge  where 
Dan  {The  Ttirn  of  the  Road)  walked  alone  to 
fight  the  horror  of  his  approaching  blindness, 
and  there  had  a  chance  encounter  with  Kate 
Randolph,  for  whom  at  that  time,  he  found  it 
difficult  to  conceal  his  contempt.  This  bridge 
is  the  one  of  which  Graham  {Miss  Brooks)  said 
that  he  often  wished  he  could  make  his  poorer 
neighbours  feel  the  refreshment,  almost  the  in- 
spiration in  a  walk  across  it  just  at  sunset,  or 
in  the  twilight  when  the  lights  were  beginning 
to  come  out  one  by  one. 

In  Martin  Merrivale,  Mr.  Trowbridge  re- 
lates how  his  hero,  accompanied  by  Cheesy  and 
the  others  in  their  tramp  to  Boston  crossed 
the  bridge  to  enter  the  city  just  at  dusk. 
Cheesy,  a  typical  country  boy,  gives  his  first 
impressions  of  the  city  in  a  characteristic  com- 
ment :    "  I  had  no  ide'  it  was  settled  so  clust 

60 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON' 

here."  Over  the  bridge  for  many  years  ran 
the  horse  cars  to  Cambridge,  —  a  line  patron- 
izedby  Basil  ( The  Bostonians)  when  he  went  out 
there  to  see  Verona  Tarrent — the  same  tedious 
route  over  which  Mrs.  Tarrent  had  spent  hours 
in  "jingling,  aching,  jostled  journeys"  —  what 
Bostonian  or  Cantabridgian  does  not  remem- 
ber them  ?  —  "  between  Charles  Street  and  her 
suburban  cottage." 

The  old  wooden  bridge  of  which  these 
novelists  wrote  has  given  way  to  a  modern 
steel  structure,  which  may  or  may  not  make  its 
appearance  in  the  Boston  fiction  of  the  future. 

IV.    IN  AND    ABOUT  THE  COMMON 

TO  the  fiction  rambler  the  Common,  that 
great   stretch   of   green   a    forest   of 
splendid  trees  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
city,   is  full   of  flitting  shadows  —  peopled  by 
old  friends  and  acquaintances,  whom,  in  imagin- 
ation we  meet  at  every  turn. 

Toiling  heavily  up  the  Park  Street  mall  late 
on   a  hot  summer    day,  we  seem  to    see  Mr. 

61 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Joshua  Harkness  (Howells's  A  Woman 's 
Reason),  struggling  to  get  home,  but  so  ill  that 
he  drops  at  last  on  a  bench,  remaining  there 
until  an  obliging  policeman  finds  a  carriage  to 
take  him  home.  At  the  head  of  this  mall  Bart- 
ley  Hubbard  and  Marcia  (Howells's  A  Modern 
Instance),  taking  their  first  stroll  here  one  win- 
ter's day,  stopped  to  see  the  boys  coasting 
under  the  care  of  the  police  between  two  long 
lines  of  spectators. 

In  this  mall,  too,  on  one  of  the  near-by 
benches  Martin  Merrivale,  in  the  novel  of  that 
name,  and  the  little  blind  Alice  sat  many  a  day 
while  he  described  the  beautiful  slopes  and 
regal  trees  about  them.  "  We  are  in  a  magni- 
ficent rolling  park,"  he  said  to  her,  "  laid  out  in 
avenues  and  paths,  with  long,  double  rows  of 
such  trees'  as  I  have  described,  running  in  al- 
most every  direction.  The  city  is  on  three 
sides,  but  on  the  west  there  is  a  river  that 
gleams  like  silver.  Beyond  that  are  blue  hills, 
all  asleep  under  the  hazy  sky.  On  the  hills 
there  are  woods  and  houses,  and  on  the  river  a 

62 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

slow-moving    sail.      I   wish  you    could   see  all 
this,  my  deai  child."    The  gentle  Alice,  though 


"  Ever  since  I  had  a  ten-cent  look  at  the  tran- 
sit of  Venus  .  .  .  through  the  telescope  in  the 
Mall,  the  earth  has  been  wholly  different  to  me 
from  what  it  used  to  be," — Holmes  s  "Over  the 
Tea- Cups." 

a  fictitious  character,  was  suggested  to  Mr. 
Trowbridge  by  his  friendship  with  a  woman 
who  was  an  interesting  psychologic  study,  she 

63 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

having  remarkable  prophetic  visions,  as  Alice 
did. 

No  doubt  Martin  and  Alice  in  their  walk 
down  the  mall  often  encountered  near  the 
Tremont  Street  entrance,  the  telescope  man 
whom  Holmes  has  immortalized  :  "  Ever  since 
I  had  a  ten  cent  look  at  the  transit  of  Venus 
.  .  .  through  the  telescope  in  the  mall,"  he 
says,  "  the  earth  has  been  wholly  different  to  me 
from  what  it  used  to  be."  As  in  the  Autocrat's 
time,  ever  cheerfully  ready  is  he  to-day  to  show 
the  wonders  of  the  planet. 

At  the  head  of  Park  Street,  across  from  this 
mall,  stood  until  within  a  few  years  the  beau- 
tiful Ticknor  mansion  —  during  George  Tick- 
nor's  time  a  rallying-point  for  literary  Boston, 
and  likewise  famed  as  being  the  house  where 
Lafayette  stayed  during  his  visit  in  1824.  This 
is,  undoubtedly,  the  house  where  Margaret  and 
Laura  lived  in  Mrs.  Louise  Chandler  Moul- 
ton's  A  Letter  and  What  Came  of  It. 

Next  door  down  the  sloping  street  is  the 
Union  Club,  shown,  as  is  the  mansion  in  the  il- 

c4 


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65 


IN       A  N  9       A  I  €>  U  T       BOSTON 

lustration,  before  either  had  undergone  altera- 
tions.  Sewell,  Mr.  John  T.  Wheelwright's  Child 
of  the  Century \  was  a  member  of  this  club,  and, 
it  will  be  remembered,  entertained  Strong  at 
breakfast  there.  "  Sewell  was  a  being  brought 
to  manhood  under  the  aegis  of  a  protective 
tariff  and  a  Puritan  ancestry,"  says  his  creator. 
"  His  whole  life  had  been  spent  on  that  part  of 
the  earth's  surface  which  is  contained  in  a  cir- 
cle with  a  radius  of  five  miles,  and  with  the 
tarnished  ofilt  dome  of  the  State  House  as  a 
centre  ;  that  favoured  spot  of  earth  where  civic 
pride  contends  for  the  mastery  over  human 
souls,  with  hatred  of  taxes — for  the  true  Bos- 
tonian  never  denies  his  birthplace  save  to  the 
tax-collector.  Of  course,  he  had  at  intervals 
emerged,  incrusted  with  prejudices  as  with  an 
armour,  from  this  magic  ring,  in  short,  tangent 
trips,  having  had  the  daring  to  penetrate  one 
winter  to  the  mournful  live-oaks  and  gladsome 
skies  of  Florida,  to  dodge  the  treacherous  east 
winds  ;  and  in  an  autumn  ramble  as  far  north 
as  the  Saguenay,  flowing  majestically  through 

67 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

the  great  Canadian  forests  ;  but  the  centrip- 
etal force  of  this  '  Hub  planet,'  so  to  speak, 
had  always  a  much  stronger  effect  upon  him 
than  the  centrifugal ;  and  like  those  red  woolen 
balls  fastened  to  a  rubber  string,  which  in  our 
boyhood  caused  us  glee,  he  sought  his  native 
town  with  the  more  rapidity,  the  farther  away 
from  it  he  strayed.  Though  he  did  not  revel 
in  existence  there,  somehow  he  seemed  to  be- 
long in  the  old  town." 

This  is  a  photographic  picture  of  the  con- 
servative Boston  type.  Sewell,  however,  was 
capable  of  doing  the  unexpected,  and  in  the 
opening  chapter  of  the  novel,  having  suddenly 
decided  to  go  to  Europe,  we  learn  that  "  he 
tacked  upon  his  office-door  the  legend  :  '  Back 
in  five  minutes,'  engrossed  in  his  neatest  legal 
hand-writing,  walked  up  to  his  rooms,  packed 
his  valise,  hailed  a  coupe,  and  drove  to  the 
station  without  a  word  of  good-bye  to  a  soul 
in  the  city,  after  thirty  years  of  residence."  It 
is  interesting  to  know  that  Mr.  Wheelwright 
originally   intended    Sewell   to    be  a   kind    of 

68 


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69 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Yankee  Pickwick  who  travelled  about  in 
search  of  adventure  ;  but  he  got  involved  in 
the  Mugwump  campaign  of  1884,  and  became 
ruined  by  what  Mr.  Wheelwright  called,  in 
speaking  of  him,  "  the  fatal  contact  with  poli- 
tics. 

Just  below  the  club,  Roweny  (Mrs.  Keats 
Bradford)  took  an  apartment  because  she  liked 
the  odour  of  business  which  in  recent  years 
has  crept  into  the  street.  At  the  corner,  fac- 
ing in  Tremont  Street,  is  the  Park  Street 
Church  which  Martin  (Trowbridge's  Martin 
Merrivale)  attended. 

On  the  western  slope  of  the  Common  is  the 
beautiful  Beacon  Street  Mall,  which  seemed  to 
Lemuel  Barker  (Howells's  The  Minister  s 
Charge)  a  kind  of  grove,  so  attractive  and 
home-like  to  the  country  lad  that  he  lingered 
on  one  of  the  benches,  where  misfortunes  soon 
befell  him.  Later  in  his  career  he  took  a 
memorable  walk  through  this  mall  with  Made- 
line  Swan.  Here,  too,  came  Bartley  Hubbard 
and    Marcia  (Howells's  A  Modern  Instance), 

71 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

who,  so  far  from  knowing  that  they  must  not 
walk  in  the  Common,  used  to  sit  down  on  a 
bench  there  in  the  pleasant  weather,  and  watch 
the  opening  of  the  spring. 

To  the  literary  rambler  the  Common  holds 
no  walk  so  full  of  interest  as  "  the  long  path," 
running  down  from  opposite  Joy  Street  south- 
ward across  the  whole  length  of  the  Common 
to  Boylston  Street,  which  the  Autocrat  and  the 
Schoolmistress  walked  together.  "  I  felt  very 
weak  indeed  (though  of  a  tolerably  robust 
habit),"  says  the  Autocrat,  "  as  we  came  op- 
posite the  head  of  this  path  on  that  morning. 
I  think  I  tried  to  speak  twice  without  making 
myself  distinctly  audible.  At  last  I  got  out  the 
question,  —  Will  you  take  the  long  path  with 
me  ?  —  Certainly,  — said  the  schoolmistress,  — 
with  much  pleasure.  —  Think, — I  said,  —  be- 
fore you  answer  :  if  you  take  the  long  path  with 
me  now,  I  shall  interpret  it  that  we  are  to  part 
no  more. —  The  schoolmistress  stepped  back 
with  a  sudden  movement,  as  if  an  arrow  had 
struck    her.      One  of  the  long  granite  blocks 

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IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

used  as  seats  was  hard  by, — the  one  you  may 
still  see  close  by  the  Gingko-tree. —  Pray,  sit 
down,  — I  said. —  No,  no,  she  answered,  softly, 
—  I  will  walk  the  long  path  with  you  !  "  How 
delightful  to  have  been  the  old  gentleman  who 
met  them  about  the  middle  of  the  way  down, 
walking  arm  in  arm !  The  granite  seat  has 
been  removed  from  the  mall,  but  the  gingko- 
tree  remains,  and  no  doubt  its  delicate  flutter- 
ing leaves  are  still  whispering  love  secrets  to 
the  neighbouring  tree-tops. 

From  the  Joy  Street  mall  across  the  hollow 
which  holds  the  Frog  Pond  is  the  most  charm- 
ing view  on  the  Common,  we  are  told  by  Mr. 
Arlo  Bates  in  The  Pagans,  one  of  the  charac- 
ters of  which  novel,  Helen  Greyson,  frequent- 
ly traversed  this  path  on  her  way  from  her 
home  on  Beacon  Hill  to  her  studio.  The 
Frog  Pond  is  described  by  Mr.  Howells  in 
The  Minister  s  Charge  as  the  place  where, 
after  a  wretched  night  on  one  of  the  near-by 
benches,  Barker  washed  his  hands  and  face, 
while  other  people  were  asleep  all  round  him. 

75 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Across  the  green  in  the  Tremont  Street 
mall  used  to  sit  old  Mr.  James  Bowdoin  (Stim- 
son's  Pirate  Gold)  for  half  an  hour  before 
breakfast  every  morning,  walking  over  from 
his  home  in  Colonnade  Row  over  the  way. 
And  here,  no  doubt,  sat  the  hero  of  Looking 
Backward,  "  finding  an  interest  merely  in 
watching  the  throngs  that  passed,  such  as  one 
has  in  studying  the  populace  of  a  foreign  city, 
so  strange  since  yesterday  had  my  fellow-citi- 
zens and  their  ways  become  to  me." 

The  Common,  with  its  malls  and  well-regu- 
lated intersecting  paths,  is  not  now  quite  the 
sunny  meadow  and  pasture  for  cows  Cooper's 
Lionel  Lincoln,  in  the  novel  of  that  name,  found 
it  when  first  he  came  to  Boston,  though  soon 
after  his  arrival  the  bucolic  rusticity  of  the 
scene  was  broken  by  the  quartering  of  British 
soldiers.  The  impish  Job  Pray,  whose  weird 
and  daring-  utterances  astonished  his  red-coat 
auditors,  told  Lionel  he  objected  to  the  sol- 
diers because  they  starved  the  cows.  "  Boston 
cows,"  said  he,  "  don't  love  grass  that   British 

76 


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77 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

soldiers  have  trampled  on."  Many  a  time 
in  those  anxious  days  Lionel,  listening  for 
a  stir  of  soldiery  on  the  Common,  heard 
only  the  "faint  lowing  of  cattle  from  the 
meadows." 

In  TJic  Rebels  Lydia  M.  Childs  pictures  the 
Common  invaded  by  the  British,  and  so,  too, 
does  Mr.  Chambers  in  his  colonial  novel,  Car- 
digan. "  I  had  never  before  seen  so  man)'  sol- 
diers together,"  says  the  hero,  "  nor  such  a 
brilliant  variety  of  uniforms.  The  townspeople, 
too,  lingered  to  watch  the  soldiers,  some  sul- 
lenly, some  indifferently,  some  in  open  enjoy- 
ment. These  latter  were  doubtless  Tories,  for 
in  their  faces  one  could  not  mistake  the  expres- 
sion of  sneering  triumph.  Also  many  of  them 
talked  to  the  soldiers,  which  earned  them  un- 
concealed scowls  from  passing  citizens." 

Of  the  Common  thus  invaded  Holmes  con- 
tributes his  picture  : 

And  over  all  the  open  green, 

Where  grazed  of  late  the  harmless  kine, 

The  cannon's  deepening  ruts  are  seen, 

The  war-horse  stamps,  the  bayonets  shine, 

79 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

The  clouds  are  dark  with  crimson  rain 

Above  the  murderous  hireling's  den, 
And  soon  their  whistling  showers  shall  stain 
The  pipe-clayed  belts  of  Gage's  men. 

What  would  seem  to  us  now  as  strange  a 
spectacle  as  the  cows  was  the  spinning  craze, 
which  led  the  belles  of  the  colony  to  bring 
their  wheels  to  the  Common.  This  odd  scene 
Bynner  describes  in  Agnes  Surriage.  "  Rows 
of  young  women  with  their  spinning  wheels 
were  busy  at  work  in  the  open  air,"  he  says, 
"  while  elderly  men  and  matrons  went  up  and 
down  the  hill  to  give  them  countenance  and 
keep  at  a  distance  the  gaping  crowd.  'Tis  the 
fashion,"  Frankland  explained  to  Agnes,  "  to 
encourage  industry  and  thrift  ;  these  are  the 
daughters  of  our  most  substantial  citizens  come 
forth  here  to  give  an  example  to  the  meaner 
sort.'  "  From  the  coquetry  of  the  pretty  minxes 
he  suspected  they  enjoyed  the  admiration  of 
the  swains  close  at  hand,  and  he  laughingly 
hurried  Agnes  away  lest  she  join  the  ranks. 

Near  the  Common  half-way  down  in  West 
Street,  was  the  Latin  School  attended  by  the 

80 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

hero  of  Wheelwright's  A  Child  of  the  C  'etitury, 
and  Philip  Sanderson  in  Mrs.  Otis's  The  Bar- 
clays of  Host  on.  Just  around  the  corner  in 
Mason  Street  is  "  the  Old  P31m,  that  subter- 
ranean retreat  known  to  bachelors  and  busy 
husbands,"  where  the  elder  Craighead  {Truth 
Dexter)  heard  his  son  unpleasantly  discussed. 
Turning  from  here  through  an  alley  to 
Washington  Street,  and  walking  down  a  short 
distance  to  the  corner  of  Washington  and  Es- 
sex  Streets,  we  come  upon  the  exact  spot 
where  in  Revolutionary  days  stood  the  Lib- 
erty Tree.  Of  this  section  of  the  town  as  de- 
scribed in  the  novels  of  colonial  life  nothing 
actually  remains  ;  but  strolling  in  this  locality, 
imagination  sweeps  away  the  modern  business 
blocks  and  whirr  of  traffic,  to  conjure  up  a  pic- 
ture of  these  stirring  days  when  the  Sons  of 
Liberty  flitted  about  this  neighbourhood,  then 
almost  pastoral.  In  The  Rebels  we,  Are.  told  by 
the  novelist  that  there  was  shot  into  Governor 
Hutchinson's  rooms  one  evening  an  arrow  to 
which   was  fastened   a  slip    of   paper   bearing 

S3 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

these  words  :  "  Lieutenant  Governor,  Member 
of  the  Council,  Commander  of  the  Castle, 
Judge  of  the. Probate,  and  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court !  You  are  hereby  commanded 
to  appear  under  the  Liberty  Tree  within  one 
hour,  to  plight  your  faith  that  you  will  use  no 
more  influence  against  an  injured  and  exasper- 
ated people."  Discussing  this,  the  Governor 
explained  to  Somerville  that  the  Liberty  Tree 
was  a  large  elm  opposite  Frog  Lane,  where 
the  mob  dared  to  suspend  their  insulting  effi- 
ofies.  This  historic  tree  stood  beside  a  smaller 
one  in  the  yard  of  a  dwelling,  where  it  re- 
mained until  the  British  cut  it  down  in  Au- 
gust, 1775.  The  rambler  who  finds  it  difficult 
to  picture  this  in  imagination  may  be  inter- 
ested to  look  up  on  the  wall  of  the  business 
building  in  Washington,  just  below  Essex 
Street,  and  see  the  memorial  bas-relief  of  the 
Liberty  Tree,  which  has  been  placed  there. 

A  few  steps  north,  about  opposite  the  present 
Haywood  Place,  stood  in  Washington  (then 
called  Newbury)  Street  the  White  Horse  Tav- 

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IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

ern,  of  which  Miss  Child  writes  in  The  Rebels. 
"Willing,"  she  says,  "to  ascertain  more  fully 
the  state  of  public  feeling,  Captain  Somerville 
entered  the  White  Horse  Tavern,  and  carelessly 
glancing  over  the  London  Chronicle,  kept  a 
watchful  eye  on  those  who  entered  and  de- 
parted." There  he  heard  his  uncle  —  Governor 
Hutchinson — unfavourably  commented  on  a- 
mid  general  mutteringsof  discontent  by  a  group, 
in  the  centre  of  which  was  Samuel  Adams,  ex- 
horting them  to  remember  that  nothing  was  to 
be  gained  by  violence;  everything  by  calm  and 
dignified  firmness.  Poor  young  Benjamin 
Woodbridge,overwhosegrave  the  Autocrat  and 
the  Schoolmistress  mourned,  is  said  to  have  been 
a  frequenter  of  this  tavern,  to  which  he  came  for 
his  sword  before  that  duel  with  Phillips  on  the 
Common,  which  caused  his  death.  It  is  of  scenes 
similar  to  those  we  find  graphically  described  in 
the  semi-historical  novels  that  Emerson  wrote: 

The  townsmen  braved  the  English  King, 

Found  friendship  in  the  French, 
And  Honour  joined  the  patriot  ring 

Low  on  their  wooden  bench. 

37 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

V.  A  RAMBLE  ROUND  THE  PUBLIC 
GARDEN 

IN  the  childhood  of  a  Bostonian  born  in  1 840, 
what  is  now  the  Public  Garden  was  in  pro- 
cess of  evolution  from  a  public  dump  and 
desolate  ash-heap  into  something  resembling- 
its  present  condition,  though  many  years  were 
to  elapse  before  it  became  the  thing  of  beauty 
it  is  to-day.  It  already  rejoiced  in  the  name  of 
Garden,  but  its  floral  inhabitants  were  few,  and  it 
was  a  favourite  camping-ground  for  the  circus, 
and  the  menagerie,  together  with  such  side- 
shows as  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  clown  and 
the  elephant.  It  supported  some  lofty  swings 
for  the  amusement  of  the  young  and  with  these 
was  a  fandango,  so  called,  —  a  tall  shaft  revolv- 
ing vertically  with  seats  at  each  end  which 
were  alternately  soared  into  the  air  and  then  al- 
most touched  the  ground.  About  this  time  the 
Garden  received  its  sea-wall  of  granite,  which 
made  its  western  boundary  ;  and  all  beyond 
what  is  now  the  eastern  edge  of  Arlington 
Street  was  the  Back  Bay, where  boats  sailed  and 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

where,  in  the  cold  winter,  men  and  boys  cut 
holes  in  the  ice,  and  erecting  a  canvas  screen 
just  large  enough  to  shelter  them  from  the 
sweep  of  the  wind,  stood  spearing  eels  with 
which  the  Bay  abounded. 

The  beautiful  Public  Garden  as  it  is  to-day 
has  been  made  use  of  scenically  by  practically 
every  writer  of  Boston  fiction  —  "  my  Garden," 
as  the  Autocrat  loved  to  call  it  with  that  sense 
of  proprietorship  so  strong  in  him  where  his 
beloved  city  was  concerned. 

To  enter  it  at  the  corner  of  Beacon  and 
Charles  Streets  is  to  come  at  once  upon  the 
Beacon  Street  path  which  Alice  and  Dan 
( Howells's  April  Hopes)  paced  so  slowly  when, 
instead  of  taking  his  Cambridge  car,  Dan  ling- 
ered in  rapturous  enjoyment  of  her  society. 
"  The  benches  on  either  side  were  filled  with 
nurse-maids  in  charge  of  baby-carriages,  and  of 
young  children  who  were  digging  in  the  sand 
with  their  little  beach  shovels,  and  playing  their 
games  back  and  forth  across  the  walk  unre- 
buked  by  the  indulgent  policeman.    A  number 

89 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

of  them  had  enclosed  a  square  in  the  middle 
of  the  path  with  four  of  the  benches,  which 
they  made-believe  was  a  fort.  The  lovers  had 
to  walk  round  it ;  and  the  children,  chasing  one 
another,  dashed  into  them  headlong,  or,  back- 
ing off  from  pursuit,  bumped  up  against  them. 
They  did  not  seem  to  know  it,  but  walked  slowly 
on  without  noticing  ;  they  were  not  aware  of  an 
occasional  benchful  of  rather  shabby  young 
fellows  who  stared  hard  at  the  stylish  girl  and 
well-dressed  young  man  talking  together  in 
such  intense  low  tones,  with  rapid  interchange 
of  radiant  glances."  Alice,  Mr.  Howells  tells 
us  later  on,  felt  out  of  the  social  frame  in  stroll- 
ing here,  for  this  garden  path  "  was  really  only 
a  shade  better  than  the  Beacon  Street  Mall  of 
the  Common." 

Other  young  people  whose  love  affairs  were 
more  or  less  interwoven  with  the  garden  are 
found  in  Mr.  Bates's  Love  In  a  Cloud.  Every- 
body in  their  set  knew  perfectly  well,  says  the 
novelist,  that  Jack  Neligage  had  been  in  love 
with  Alice  Endicott  from  the  days  when  they 

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IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

had  paddled  in  the  sand  on  the  walks  of  the 
Public  Garden.  "  The  smart  nursery  maids 
whose  occupation  it  was  to  convey  their  charges 
thither  and  keep  them  out  of  the  fountains,  be- 
tween-whiles  exchanging  gossip  about  the  par- 
ents of  the  babies,  had  begun  the  talk.  The 
opinions  of  fashionable  society  are  generally 
first  formed  by  servants,  and  then  served  up 
with  a  garnish  of  fancifully  distorted  facts  for 
the  edification  of  their  mistresses  ;  and  in  due 
time  the  loves  of  the  Public  Garden,  reported 
and  decorated  by  the  nursery  maids,  serve  as 
topics  for  afternoon  calls.  Master  Jack  was 
known  to  be  in  love  with  Miss  Alice  before 
either  of  them  could  have  written  the  word,  and 
in  this  case  the  passion  had  been  so  lasting  that 
it  excited  remark  not  only  for  itself  as  an  ordi- 
nary attachment,  but  as  an  extraordinary  case 
of  unusual  constancy." 

Most  of  the  characters  in  Boston  fiction  tra- 
verse the  Garden  on  their  way  across  the  city, 
but  few,  and  they  are  rarely  intended  to  be 
genuine  Bostonians,  are  permitted  by  the  nov- 

93 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

elists  to  so  far  diverge  from  the  social  code  as 
to  sit  there.  Mrs.  Daintry  (Henry  James's  A 
New  England  Winter}  always  crossed  the 
Garden  in  going-  from  her  home  on  the  "  new 
land  "  to  Miss  Lucretia  Daintry's  on  "  the  hill," 
and  we  are  given  here  a  brief  glimpse  of  the 
winter  aspect  of  the  garden  —  the  denuded 
bushes,  the  solid  pond,  and  the  plank-covered 
walks,  the  exaggerated  bridge  and  the  patriotic 
statues. 

More  attractive  is  it  as  it  appeared  to  Craig- 
head {Truth Dexter")  crossing  it  from  Arling- 
ton Street  on  his  way  from  Mrs.  Adams's,  in 
Beacon  Street,  "  when  the  flower-beds  were 
brilliant  with  crocuses,  tulips  and  hyacinths. 
The  smell  of  the  upturned  earth  was  pungent 
with  life.  In  a  single  night  Spring's  bridal 
tunic  had  by  fairy  looms  been  woven."  These 
bright  patches  of  flowers  are  what  Dr.  Holmes 
called  "the  pretty-behaved  flower-beds"  which 
he  did  not  admire  so  much  as  nature  in  a  more 
riotous  mood. 

Marion  Crawford,   in  An  American  Politi- 

94 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

cian^  also  comments  on  the  carpet  of  bright 
flowers.  Harrington,  the  politician,  on  return- 
ing to  Boston  in  the  late  spring,  found  the 
garden  a  delight.  "The  breath  of  spring  has 
been  everywhere,  and  the  haze  of  the  hot  sum- 
mer is  ripening  the  buds  that  the  spring  has 
brought  out.  .  .  .  There  is  a  smell  of  violets 
and  flowers  in  the  warm  air,  and  down  on  the 
little  pond  the  swan-shaped  boats  are  paddling 
about  with  their  cargoes  of  merry  children  and 
calico  nursery  maids,  while  the  Irish  boys  look 
on  from  the  banks  and  throw  pebbles  when  the 
policemen  are  not  looking,  wishing  they  had 
the  spare  coin  necessary  to  embark  for  a  ten 
minutes  voyage  on  the  mimic  sea." 

Virginia  Kent  (Pier's  The  Sentimentalists), 
a  westerner,  be  it  understood,  is  one  of  the 
fictitious  persons  who  took  great  pleasure  in 
strolling  about  and  sitting  in  the  Garden.  Near 
the  Commonwealth  Avenue  gate  it  is  pleasant 
to  sit  down  on  a  bench  for  a  moment  where  she 
lingered  "  to  watch  the  gardeners  who  were 
taking  the  stocks  out  of  a  flower-bed  and  lay- 

95 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


ing  them  in  a  wheel- 
barrow, then  mould- 
ing and  smoothing 
the  earth.  .  .  .  She 
contrasted  these  good 
workmen  with  the 
men  sitting-  about  on 
benches  reading 
newspapers,  and  won- 
dered   what    occupa- 

.  ill  "  Near  the  Commonwealth  Ave- 

tlOn  they  COuld  have  ;      nue.    .    .    .    Washington    bestrode 

his  fretful  and  apparently  harness- 
it     Seemed     to     her     a     hampered  steed  on  one  side  of  her." 
.    .  r  1-r  t         — Piers  "The  Sentimentalists." 

witless  sort  01  life.    It 

did  not  occur  to  her  that  most  of  them  were 
reading  the  newspapers  in  search  of  occupation. 
Washington  bestrode  his  fretful  and  apparently 
harness-hampered  steed  on  one  side  of  her ;  in 
the  centre  of  a  fountain  on  the  other  side  stood 
a  small,  all  but  nude  woman,  with  the  extreme 
expression  of  bashfulness  that  a  mere  frag- 
ment of  clothing  permits  one  to  assume.  And 
whether  through  the  sculptor's  cynical  design, 
or  by  reason  of  his  want  of  skill,  the  expres- 

96 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 


sion  seemed  to  be  of 
an  emotion  distinctly 
perfunctory  and  af- 
fected. .  .  .  From  the 
pond  near  by  came 
the  frequent  tapping 
of  a  ijonor  as  the 
swan-boats,  with  gay 
awnings,  made  their 
leisurely  circuits  and 

"  Bartley,  who  was  already  be-  i-      1                ,       , 

ginning  to  get  up  a  taste  fo'r  art,  discharged,     the     tOUT- 

boldly    stopped    and    praised    the  .               ,  ,         ,  j  .          . 

Venus."— Howells's    "A    Modern  IStS.               Virginia 

I>i  stance."  i              ,            ,          r^         i 

thought  the  Garden 
rather  pretty  and  just  absurd  enough  to  be  in- 
teresting —  she  half  expected  to  see  a  banana 
tree  grafted  onto  a  beech  —  just  to  be  decora- 
tively  unique,  and  the  gardeners,  she  said,  had 
contrived  to  make  the  statues  seem  designed  for 
centres  and  reliefs  to  their  flower  schemes. 
She  thouo-ht  there  couldn't  be  too  many  statues 
— "  the  orood  ones  are  beautiful  and  the  bad 
ones  are  quaint.  They're  different  from  bad 
poetry  or  bad  pictures." 

97 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Westward  from  the  bench  where  Virginia 
was  sitting  is  the  Ether  Monument  mentioned 
in  Truth  Dexter,  while  the  Washington  and 
Venus  statues  in  close  proximity  to  her  are 
many  times  alluded  to  in  Mr.  Howells's  fiction, 
notably  in  The  Minister  s  Charge,  where  we 
learn  that  Barker,  for  the  first  time  in  the  Gar- 
den, observed  the  image  of  Washington  on 
horseback  and  a  naked  woman  in  a  orranite 
basin,  which  he  thought  ought  not  to  be  al- 
lowed there —  the  Venus  shocked  his  inexperi- 
ence. Bartley  Hubbard  (A  Modern  Instance), 
however,  who  was  already  beginning  to  get  up 
a  taste  for  art,  boldly  stopped  and  praised  the 
Venus.  He  and  Marcia  during  their  first 
months  in  Boston  frequently  resorted  to  the 
Garden,  where  they  admired  the  bridge  and 
the  rockwork  and  the  statues. 

Ford  {The  Undiscovered  Country),  who 
strolled  here  when  the  whole  precinct  rested  in 
patrician  insensibility  to  the  plebeian  hour  of 
seven,  surprised  the  marble  Venus  without  her 
shower    on,  but   he   never   sat  by  the  statue, 


99 


IN       AND       A  ii  O  U  T       B  O  S  T  O  N 

preferring  a  bench  under  the  Kilmarnock  wil- 
lows by  the  pond.  These  beautiful  willows 
are  described  in  The  Sentimentalists,  and  un- 
der one  of  them  we  find  Hartwell,  the  hero  of 
Her  Boston  Experiences,  alone  on  a  bench  — 
driven  to  so  shocking  a  disregard  of  the  con- 
ventionalities by  desperation.  "  I  had  no 
idea,"  exclaims  the  heroine,  discovering  him 
there,  "  a  Bostonian  with  connections  would 
do  anything  so  plebeian  as  to  sit  in  the  Public 
Garden  on  a  bench."  She  and  one  or  two  of 
her  friends  were  venturesome  enough  to  sit 
there  occasionally,  but  they  were  not  Bosto- 
nians. 

Bounding  the  Garden  on  the  east  is  Charles 
Street,  and  returning  to  this  thoroughfare  we 
get  into  step  with  Graham  (Elisa  Orne  White's 
Miss  Brooks),  who,  walking  there  with  Janet 
unexpectedly,  in  a  desperate  mood  tells  her 
that  he  loves  her.  Great  is  his  amazement 
when  she  replies  :  "  I  have  cared  for  you  a 
long  time.  When  I  am  with  you  I  am  happy, 
it  does  not  matter  where  we  are  ;  and  when   I 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

am  away  from  you,  it  is  the  feeling  that  you 
are  in  the  world  too,  belonging  to  me  in  a 
certain  sense,  because  you  are  my  friend,  that 
makes  the  best  part  of  all  my  days."  This  is 
one  of  the  few  events  in  Boston  fiction  which 
occurs  out-of-doors,  city  life,  naturally,  not 
lending  itself  to  much  action  in  the  open  be- 
yond the  casual  meeting  of  characters  as  they 
traverse  the  streets. 

At  the  corner  of  Charles  and  Boylston 
Streets  is  the  apothecary's  window  before 
which  dear  old  Miss  Birdseye  (  The  Bostonians), 
who  was  always  round  the  streets,  stood  with 
Basil  Ransom,  the  Mississippian,  waiting  for 
her  South  End  car —  she,  the  while,  protesting 
vigourously  against  the  idea  that  a  gentleman 
from  the  South  should  pretend  to  teach  an  old 
abolitionist  the  mysteries  of  Boston. 

This  corner  and  the  Providence  station  near 
by  are  identified  with  the  delightful,  fond-of- 
entertainments  Susan  and  her  original  escort 
(Susans  Escort)  whom  the  humour  of  Dr. 
Hale  has  made  for  us.     Susan,  finding  it  un- 


IU3 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

pleasant  to  go  about  alone  at  night  in  Boston, 
conceived  the  idea  of  making  herself  an  escort 
after  this  fashion  :    "  She  bought  a  cheap  and 


"...  They  stood  in  the  sun,  with  their  backs 
against  an  apothecary's  window." — James's  "The 
Bostonians," 


light  gossamer  overcoat,  a  travelling  cap,  a 
dozen  toy  masks  and  a  pair  of  badly  worn 
check  pantaloons.  She  also  bought  rattan 
enough,  and  the  wire  of  hoop-skirts,  for  her 
purpose.   She  sewed  to  the  bottom  of  the  pan- 

105 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

taloons  two  arctics.  From  the  rattan,  with  an 
old  umbrella  slide,  she  made  a  backbone  and 
two  available  legs  to  support  the  mackintosh, 
and  on  the  top  of  the  backbone  she  could  ad- 
just either  of  the  masks  which  she  preferred 
with  the  travelling  cap.  The  whole  thing 
would  shut  together  like  a  travelling-;  easel. 
The  mask  would  go  into  her  leather  bag, 
which,  like  others  of  her  sex,  she  carried  every- 
where. The  rest  could  then  be  slid  into  a 
lono-  umbrella  case."  Her  adventures  with 
this  dummy  are  inimitably  told  in  the  story,  in 
which  we  are  assured  that  in  the  halcyon  days  of 
"  the  escort's  "  first  success  Susan  enjoyed  her 
winter  of  entertainments  as  she  had  never  en- 
joyed a  winter  before.  For,  if  you  choose,  in 
Boston,  says  Dr.  Hale,  "there  is  nothing  you 
may  not  see  and  hear  and  know  and  under- 
stand in  the  heavens  above,  or  the  earth  be- 
neath, or  the  waters  that  are  supposed  to  be 
under  the  earth."  The  clever  Susan,  who 
lived  in  the  suburbs  on  the  Providence  road, 
always  on  arriving  at  the  station  stepped  out 

106 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

to  that  sheltered  lee  where  you  wait  for  Cam- 
bridge Street  cars  and  opened  up  her  new 
friend  to   his  own  proportions.      It   is  simple 


The  home  of  Mrs.  Mesh  in  Arlington  Street. 
— -James's  "A  ATew  England  Winter." 

enough  to  identify   this  starting-point  of  hers 
outside  of  the  now  abandoned  station. 

Craighead  [Truth  Dexter),  returning  from 
Alabama,  came  in  to  Boston  at  the  Providence 
Station  which  loomed  positively  palatial  to  the 

107 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


returning  traveller.  The  vista  of  the  Public 
Garden  through  the  narrow  framing  of  Church 
Street,  the .  objurgations  of  rival  cab-drivers, 
the  long  line  of  electric  cars  crawling  about  the 
corner  of  Charles  like  a  migration  of  saturnian 

ants,  and  the  tireless 
current  of  uncon- 
cerned humanity 
pouring  through  the 
channel  of  Boylston, 
—  all  combined  to 
thrill  him  with  a  re- 
turning sense  of  vital- 
ity and  power.  Truth 
also  got  her  first  im- 
pressions of  the  city 
here.  Ford  and  Phil- 
lips (Howells's  The 
Undiscovered  Country!)  lodged  in  Boylston 
Street  which  runs  beside  the  Garden  on  the 
south.  At  the  corner  of  Boylston  and  Arling- 
ton Streets,  facing  the  Garden,  is  the  Arlington 
Street  church  referred  to  in  the  same  novel. 

ioS 


"  Mrs.  Adams  lived  in  that  sun- 
niest part  of  Beacon  Street  which 
fashionable  residents  are  abandon- 
ing to  fashionable  dressmakers." — 
"  Truth  Dexter." 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Beyond  this,  farther  down  the  street,  we  pass 
the  residence  of  Mrs.  Mesh  (James's  A  New 
England  II  'inter),  with  whom  Rachel  Torrance 
spent  the  winter  and  where  that  most  tiresome 
of  prigs  Florimond  JDaintry,  was  frequently 
to  be  found.  Just  around  the  corner,  east- 
ward, is  the  residence  described  as  Mrs. 
Adams's  {Truth  Dexter)  "in  that  sunniest  part 
of  Beacon  Street  which  fashionable  residents 
are  abandoning  to  fashionable  dressmakers, 
suffering  it  to  connect,  as  it  were,  by  the 
handle  of  a  dumb-bell,  the  two  aristocratic 
bulks  of  the  Milldam  and  Beacon  Hill." 

VI.  THE  BACK  BAY 

THE  new  land,  commonly  known  as  the 
Back  Bay,  was  made  in  the  early 
fifties,  when  the  process  of  filling  in 
the  bay  began,  and  plans  were  drawn  on  which 
were  laid  out  the  streets  with  names  which 
seem  to  have  been  borrowed  from  the  British 
peerage.  Thirty  years  more  or  less  were  con- 
sumed in  filling  in  the  bay,  with  the  result  that 

109 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

it  became  the  Court  End  of  the  city,  fulfilling 
the  prophecy  of  its  projectors.  But  those  were 
years  of  dust,  of  rattling  gravel  trains,  of  a  be- 
wilderment of  annoyances  which  drove  more 
than  one  of  the  steady-going  citizens  into  rural 
retirement,  and  some,  it  is  to  be  feared,  into 
the  quiet  of  the  grave. 

This  made  land  forms  a  scenic  background 
in  fiction  for  a  dominant  phase  of  modern  Bos- 
ton—  neither  literary,  nor  sesthetical,  nor  of  a 
distinctive  atmosphere,  but  fashionable  and 
up-to-date  on  a  metropolitan  model.  Regard- 
ing with  high  disfavour  this  section  of  the 
town,  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney  years  ago  wrote 
of  it  {Hitherto}:  "The  Back  Bay  has  been 
filled  up,  and  a  section  of  Paris  dumped  down 
into  it."  Here  we  find  the  "  water  side  of 
Beacon  Street  "  and  the  "  sunny  side  of  Com- 
monwealth Avenue,"  which,  as  Mr.  Howells 
says,  mean  so  much  more  than  the  words  say. 
Curiously  enough,  while  the  less  desirable  side 
of  Beacon  Street  is  fashionable,the  same  cannot 
be  said  of  the  avenue,  where  only  the  "  sunny 


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IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

side,"  fashionably  speaking,  is  "  possible,"  and 
no  novelist,  intent  upon  picturing  smart  society 
in  the  Hub,  fails  to  be  cognizant  of  these  dis- 
tinctions. 

Of  these  two  residential  streets,  Beacon, 
though  less  beautiful,  is  more  aristocratic. 
Frivolous,  worldly  Beacon  Street,  Mrs.  Farrin- 
der  (James's  The  Bostonians)  called  it,  to  the 
annoyance  of  Olive,  who  hated  to  hear  it  talked 
-about  as  if  it  were  such  a  remarkable  place, 
and  to  live  there  were  a  proof  of  worldly  glory. 
In  A  New  England  Winter  the  same  novelist 
tells  us  that  Florimond  greatly  admired  this 
(then)  new  street  on  the  artificial  bosom  of  the 
Back  Bay.  "  The  long  straight  street  lay  air- 
ing its  newness  in  the  frosty  day,  and  all  its 
individual  facades,  with  their  neat,  sharp  or- 
naments, seemed  to  have  been  scoured,  with  a 
kind  of  friction,  by  the  hard,  salutary  light. 
Their  brilliant  browns  and  drabs,  their  rosy 
surfaces  of  brick,  made  a  variety  of  fresh,  vio- 
lent tones,  such  as  Florimond  like  to  memorize, 
and  the  lar^e  clear  windows  of  their  curved 

113 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

fronts  faced  each  other  across  the  street,  like 
candid,  inevitable  eyes.  There  was  something 
almost  terrible  in  the  windows  ;  Florimond  had 
forgotten  how  vast  and  clean  they  were,  and 
now,  in  their  sculptured  frames,  the  New  Eng- 
land air  seemed,  like  a  zealous  housewife,  to 
polish  and  preserve  them. 

Not  far  from  Arlington  Street  in  Beacon 
was,  we  imagine,  the  home  of  Mrs.  Sam  Wynd- 
ham  (Crawford's  An  American  Politician). 
She  was  a  woman,  the  novelist  says,  who  did 
her  duty  in  the  social  state  in  which  she  was 
called  in  Boston,  reserving  the  right  to  do 
many  things  according  to  her  mood  while  fol- 
lowing most  of  the  established  Beacon  Street 
customs.  Beacon  Street  receives  Monday  af- 
ternoons, and  all  Boston  came  to  Mrs.  Wynd- 
ham's  receptions,  "  excepting  all  the  other 
ladies  who  live  in  Beacon  Street,  and  that  is  a 
very  considerable  portion  of  Boston,  as  every 
schoolboy  knows."  We  are  at  once  told  the 
age  of  Mrs.  Wyndham,  for  "  it  is  as  easy  for  a 
Bostonian  to  conceal  a  question  of  age  as  for  a 

114 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

crowned  head.  In  a  place  where  one-half  of 
society  calls  the  other  half  cousin,  and  went  to 
school  with  it,  everyone  knows  and  accurately 
remembers  just  how  old  everybody  else  is." 
This  matter  of  cousinship  on  the  Hub  is  also 
commented  on  by  Mr.  Arlo  Bates  in  Love  In 
a  Cloud :  "  May,  as  it  is  the  moral  duty  of 
every  self-respecting  Bostonian  to  be,  was  re- 
lated to  everybody  who  was  socially  anybody." 
It  has  been  repeatedly  said  that  Marion 
Crawford  drew  Mrs.  Sam  Wyndham  from  a  cer- 
tain world-renowned  social  leader,  whose  beau- 
tiful home  until  recently  was  on  "  the  water 
side  "  not  far  from  Arlington  Street,  and  he  is 
not  the  only  novelist  thus  accused,  for  this  same 
brilliant  woman  is  at  once  proclaimed  the  pro- 
totype of  any  feminine  character  of  marked  in- 
dividuality and  social  prominence  who  appears 
in  the  pages  of  Boston  fiction.  Of  course, 
knowingly  says  the  public,  she  is  the  original 
of  Mrs.  Sam  Wyndham,  and  of  Mrs.  Chauncey 
Wilson  (Bates's  The  Puritans),  and  did  not 
Miss  Anna  Farquhar   exactly  picture  her  as 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Mrs.  Bobby  Short  {Her  Boston  Experiences), 
who  always  sailed  in  late  to  receptions  with  a 
string  of  men  in  tow  u  like  a  graceful  ship  in 
full  sail  with  several  tugs  steaming  in  her  wake." 
This  determination  on  the  part  of  the  public 
to  see  in  purely  fictitious  women  an  actual  one 
is  a  little  hard  on  the  supposed  "  model,"  and 
those  novelists  whose  characters  are  the  crea- 
tures of  their  brain. 

To  return  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Sam  Wynd- 
ham,  Crawford  makes  a  most  amusing  comment 
relative  to  its  number.  "  It  is  a  peculiarity  of 
Boston  to  put  the  number  of  the  houses  on  the 
back  instead  of  the  front,  so  that  the  only  cer- 
tain course  to  follow  in  searching  for  a  friend 
is  to  reach  the  rear  of  his  house,  by  a  circuit- 
ous route  through  side  streets  and  back  alleys, 
and  then,  having  fixed  the  exact  position  of  his 
residence  by  astronomical  observation,  to  re- 
turn to  the  front  and  enquire  for  him.  It  is 
true  that  even  then  one  is  frequently  mistaken, 
but  there  is  nothing-  else  to  be  done." 

Evidently  Mrs.  Sam  Wyndham  did  not,  like 

116 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Mrs.  Daintry  (James's  A  New  England  Win- 
ter), follow  the  old  Boston  custom  of  ornament- 
ing her  door  with  a  large  silver  plate,  the 
exhibition  of  which  Mrs.  Daintry  preferred  to 
the  more  distinguished  modern  fashion  of  sup- 
pressing the  domiciliary  label.  The  Autocrat 
makes  mention  of  these  Beacon  Street  door 
plates,  which  in  his  day  were  a  matter  of 
course. 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Mrs.  Sam  Wynd- 
ham  lived  Miss  Schenectady,  at  whose  house 
we  first  meet  John  Harrington,  who  is  the 
American  politician  which  gives  the  novel  its 
title.  This  Harrington,  says  his  creator,  was 
a  constant  source  of  interest,  and  not  infre- 
quently of  terror,  to  the  good  town  of  Boston. 
"  True,  he  was  a  Bostonian  himself,  a  chip  of 
the  old  block,  whose  progenitors  had  lived  in 
Salem,  and  whose  very  name  breathed  Pilgrim 
memories.  He  even  had  a  tea-pot  that  had 
come  over  in  the  Mayflower.  This  was  greatly 
venerated,  and  whenever  John  Harrington  said 
anything  more  than  usually  modern  his  friends 

117 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

brandished  the  tea-pot,  morally  speaking,  in 
his  defense,  and  put  it  in  the  clouds  as  a  kind 
of  rainbow — a  promise  that  Puritan  blood 
could  not  go  wrong.  Nevertheless,  Harring- 
ton continued  to  startle  his  fellow-townsmen 
by  his  writings  and  sayings,  so  that  many  of 
the  grave  sort  shook  their  heads  and  swore 
that  he  sympathized  with  the  Irish  and  be- 
lieved in  Chinese  labor." 

Beacon  Street  was  the  locality  in  which  lived 
Bayard's  uncle,  Mr.  Hermon  Worcester  (Miss 
Phelps's  A  Singular  Life),  though  the  author 
says  she  had,  and  never  does  have,  for  the 
homes  of  her  characters  any  particular  houses 
in  mind.  Bayard,  she  has  told  us  in  her  Chap- 
ter From  a  Life,  is  her  dearest  hero. 

The  house  of  most  interest  as  we  stroll  down 
the  water  side  of  Beacon  Street  is  No.  296, 
once  the  home  of  the  Autocrat  and  now  of 
his  son  Judge  Holmes.  Mr.  Howells,  for  three 
years  his  near  neighbour,opens  the  door  for  us 
in  a  charming  fashion  {Literary  Friends  and 
Acquaintance),  and    having    conducted  us  to 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

the  library,  shows  us  the  view  from  the  win- 
dow as  the  Autocrat  saw  and  loved  it.  "  He 
said  that  you  could  count  fourteen  towns  and 
villages  in  the  compass  of  that  view,  with  the 
three  conspicuous  monuments  accenting  the 
different  attractions  of  it :  the  tower  of  Me- 
morial Hall  at  Harvard  ;  the  obelisk  on  Bun- 
ker Bill ;  and  in  the  centre  of  the  picture  that 
bulk  of  Tufts  College  which  he  said  he  ex- 
pected to  greet  his  eyes  the  first  thing  when 
he  opened  them  in  the  other  world.  But  the 
prospect,  though  generally  the  same,  had  cer- 
tain precious  differences  for  each  of  us,  which 
I  have  no  doubt  he  valued  himself  as  much 
upon  as  I  did.  I  have  a  notion  that  he  fan- 
cied these  were  to  be  enjoyed  best  in  his 
library  through  two  oval  panes  let  into  the  bay 
there  apart  from  the  windows,  for  he  was  apt 
to  make  you  come  and  look  out  of  them  if  you 
got  to  talking  of  the  view  before  you  left. 

In  this  pleasant  study  he  lived  among  the 
books,  which  seemed  to  multiply  from  case  to 
case  and  shelf  to  shelf,  and  climb  from  floor  to 

119 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

ceiling.      Everything  was  in  exquisite  order, 
and  the  desk  where  he  wrote  was  as  scrupu- 


296  BEACON  STREET  (THE  OVAL  DOORWAY),   THE 

HOME  OF  "  THE  AUTOCRAT  " 

302,  THE  HOME  OF  MR.  HOWELLS 

"When  you  come  to  the  Back  Bay,  give  me  the 
water  side  of  Beacon  Street." — Ho  Wells's  "  The  Hise 

of  Silas  Lapham" 

lously  neat  as  if  the  sloven  disarray  of  most 
authors'  desks  were  impossible  to  him.  He 
had  a  number  of  ingenious  little  contrivances 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

for  helping  his  work,  which  he  liked  to  show 
you  ;  for  a  time  a  revolving  bookcase  at  the 
corner  of  his  desk  seemed  to  be  his  pet  ;  and 
after  that  came  his  fountain  pen,  which  he  used 
with  due  observance  of  its  fountain  principle, 
though  he  was  tolerant  of  me  when  I  said  I 
always  dipped  mine  in  the  inkstand  ;  it  was  a 
merit  in  his  eyes  to  use  a  fountain  pen  in  any- 
wise. After  you  had  gone  over  these  objects 
with  him,  and  perhaps  taken  a  peep  at  some- 
thin?  he  was  examining-  through  his  micro- 
scope,  he  sat  down  at  one  corner  of  his  hearth, 
and  invited  you  to  an  easy  chair  at  the  other." 

At  No.  302,  just  below  the  Autocrats,  is  the 
house  occupied  by  Mr.  Howells,  in  the  library 
of  which  he  wrote  much  of  his  later  Boston 
fiction.  He  had  this  block  in  mind  in  describ- 
ing the  home  of  Miss  Kingsbury  (A  Woman  s 
Reason),  and  also  the  site  of  the  ill-fated  man- 
sion of  Col.  Lapham  {The  Rise  of  Silas  Lap- 
ham).  "  When  you  come  to  the  Back  Bay," 
said  the  Colonel  to  young  Corey  while  showing 
him  over  the  house,  "  give  me  the  water  side 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

of  Beacon  Street.  .  .  .  The  Bay  spreads  its 
glassy  sheet  before  them,  empty  but  for  a  few- 
small  boats  and  a  large  schooner,  with  her  sails 
close-furled  and  dripping  like  snow  from  her 
spars,  which  a  tug  was  rapidly  towing  toward 


"  Marlborough,  a  straight,  long  street  with 
houses  just  alike." — Howellss  "The  Minister' 's 
Charge." 

Cambridge.  The  carpentry  of  that  city,  em- 
banked and  embowered  in  foliage,  shared  the 
picturesqueness  of  Charlestown  in  the  dis- 
tance." 

Parallel  to  and  one  block  south  of  Beacon 
Street  is  Marlborough,  "  a  straight,  long  street, 
with  houses  just  alike  on  both  sides  and  bits 
of  grass  before  them,"  called  by  Mr.  Howells 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Holingbrook  in  describing  it  as  the  street  in 
which  lived  the  Rev.  Mr.  Sewell,  whom  the 
novelist  has  intimately  involved  in  the  affairs 
of  Silas  Lapham  and  in  The  Minister 's  Charge. 


" — they  neared  Mrs.  Rangelev's  house  on  Marl- 
borough Street." — Arlo  Bates's  "  The  Puri- 
tans" 


Half  a  block  away  lived  Miss  Vane,  of  the  lat- 
ter novel,  and  somewhere  in  this  street  lived 
Mrs.  Rangeley  ( Bates's  The  Puritans),  where 
so  much  that  was  eventful  happened  to  Mau- 
rice Wynne. 

At  No.  459  Marlborough  Street  is  the  town 
house  of  Mr.  j.  F.  Stimson,  the   novelist  and 

123 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


The  home  of  the  Maxwells  on 
the  "sunny  side"  of  Common- 
wealth Avenue.  —  Eliza  Orne 
White  s  "Afiss  Brooks." 


author  of  Pirate, 
Gold,  the  characters 
of  which  are  old 
friends,  many  of 
whose  haunts  and 
homes  we  have  dis- 
covered in  our  ram- 
bles. 

Commonweal  th 
Avenue,  or  in  the 
vernacular,  "the  Ave- 
nue," with  its  beauti- 
ful park  through  the  centre,  is  next  in  impor- 
tance to  Beacon  Street  in  the  pages  of  Boston 
fiction.  We  know  that  the  Maxwells  [Miss 
Brooks)  lived  there,  as  did  the  Rowans  and  Dr. 
McDowell  {The  Sentimentalists)  ;  so,  too,  did 
the  Chauncey  Wilsons  [The  Puritans),  Mrs. 
Wiley  (Truth  Dexter),  we  suspect,  and  the 
inconsequent  Grangers  [Her  Boston  Experi- 
ences) were  quite  content  with  it  when  they 
might  have  lived  in  Beacon  Street  ! 

All  these  persons  being  fashionables,  lived 
124 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 


The  home  of  the  Chauncey  Wil- 
sons— at  the  corner  of  Common- 
wealth Avenue  and  Hereford  Street. 
— Arlo  Bates's  "  The  Puritans." 


on  "  the  sunny  side  " 
—  the  Maxwells  be- 
tween Arlington  and 
Berkeley  Streets,  in 
a  beautiful  vine-cov- 
ered house,  while  be- 
low them  is  the  gray 
stone  dwelling1  of  the 
Rowans  —  the  girl, 
but  not  her  brother, 
one  of  the  most  pro- 
nounced of  The Senti- 
mentalists. Indeed,  her  temperament  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  fact  that  the  title  of  Mr.  Pier's 
novel  is  plural  rather  than  singular.  It  was 
originally  his  intention  to  build  this  story 
mainly  around  his  hero,  Vernon  Kent,  but 
Frances  Rowan  developed  such  an  excess  of 
sentimentality,  and  Mrs.  Kent  became  so  in- 
sistent that  a  change  of  title  was  necessary. 
In  Mrs.  Kent  we  have  a  case  of  a  character 
dominating  her  creator.  She  was  intended 
to  play   a    clever    second   to  her  son,  instead 

125 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


of  which  she  showed  a  decided  preference 
for  the  centre  of  the  stage,  which  she  kept 
with  such  persistence  that  Mr.  Pier  was 
forced  to  let  her  take  things  into  her  own 
hands,  as  a  result  of  which  she  is  one  of  the 

most  interesting  women 
to-day  in  Boston  fiction. 
At  the  corner  of  the 
Avenue  and  Hereford 
Street  we  find  the  im- 
posing house  described 
by  Mr.  Bates  in  The* 
Puritans  as  the  home  of 
the  Chauncey  Wilsons. 
"  On  the  proper  side  of 
the  Avenue  with  a  regal 

"  Mrs.  Daintry  was  very  fond 

of  this  beautiful   prospect."—  front  of  marble  and  with 

James's  "A  New  England  Win- 

ter-"  balconies    of    wrought 

iron  before  the  wide  windows  above,  one  of  es- 
pecially elaborate  workmanship  having  once 
adorned  the  front  of  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries. 
Pillars  of  verd  antique  stood  on  either  side  of  the 
doorway,  as  if  it  were  the  portal  of  a  temple." 

126 


THE  AVENUE  THROUGH  THE 
PARK 


IN      AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

Turnincr  now  to  stroll  down  the  Avenue 
through  the  park,  we  come  upon  the  much  dis- 
cussed and  much  despised  statues  of  states- 
men—  one  for  every  block,  to  which  Virginia 


THE   ST.  BOTOLPH    CLUB — NO.  2    NEWBURY 
STREET 

Kent  calls  Ballington's  attention.  Mr.  Bates's 
characters  in  The  Philistines  were  greatly  agi- 
tated over  plans  for  a  new  statue,  about  which 
they  had  conflicting  and  most  violent  opinions, 
which  leads  the  author  to  say  :  "  The  inner 
history  of  the  effigies  which  in  Boston  do  duty 
as  statues  would  be  most  interesting  reading:, 

127 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

amusing  or  depressing  as  one  felt  obliged  to 
take  it.      To  know  what  causes  led  to  the  pro- 


233  CLARENDON   STREET — THE  HOME  OF  THE 
LATE  BISHOP  BROOKS 

"  The  two  clergymen  left  the  house  and  went 
down  the  street  together." — Arlo  Bates's  "The 
Puritans.'" 


duction  and  then  to  the  erection  of  these  mon- 
strosities could  hardly  fail  to  be  instructive, 
although    the    knowledge    might    be    rather 

128 


c  is 


§, 


—  c  < 

-  -  '; 

4-.  c  ° 

i-.  <u  . 


129 


IN      AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

dreary."  The  Autocrat,  too,  enters  his  protest 
when  he  tells  us  that  he  and  his  fellow-citizens 
have  had  their  sensibilities  greatly  worked 
upon,  their  patriotism  chilled  and  their  local 
pride  outraged  by  the  monstrosities  which  had 
been  allowed  to  deform  their  beautiful  public 
grounds. 

From  the  avenue  turning  into  Berkeley  and 
thence  into  Newbury  Street,  we  find  at  Num- 
ber 2  the  St.  Botolph  Club,  where  Watson 
and  Willis  (Aldrich's  Goliath)  used  to  play  bil- 
liards, and  members  of  which  were  Craighead 
and  Norton  (Truth  Dexter).  But  it  becomes 
better  known  to  us  through  the  pages  of  Mr. 
Bates's  fiction,  notably  The  Pagans  —  who 
were  all  members  —  and  The  Philistines,  in 
both  of  which  novels  it  figures  under  the  dis- 
guise of  the  St.  Filipe  Club  —  "which  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  main- 
tained the  reputation  of  leading  in  matters  of 
art  and  literature." 

Farther  down  in  the  same  street  lived  Mrs. 
Daintry  (James's   A  New  England   IVinter), 

131 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

and  around  the  corner  from  her  in  Clarendon 
Street,  her  daughter  Joanna  and  her  six  chil- 
dren ;  but  Clarendon  Street  is  of  greater  fic- 
tional interest  than  this,  for  at  the  corner  of 
Newbury  we  come  upon  the  home  of  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Strathmore  [The  Puritans),  a  house 
known  through  the  country  as  the  home  of  the 
great  Bishop  Brooks.  If  it  was  not  Mr. 
Bates's  intention  to  draw  Mr.  Strathmore 
from  the  celebrated  bishop,  he  has,  neverthe- 
less, unconsciously  done  it  with  so  sympathetic 
a  touch  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  recall  him 
in  every  line.  "  Strathmore  was  of  commanding 
presence  ...  a  man  who  appealed  strongly  to 
the  common  heart,  both  by  his  sympathy  and 
by  flexibility  of  character  and  temperament, 
which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  be  repel- 
lently  stern  or  austere.  He  preached  high 
ideals  ...  he  demanded  high  purpose  and  high 
life,  noble  aims  and  unfailing  charity  ...  he  was 
looked  up  to  by  the  general  public  as  a  great 
spiritual  leader,  and  loved  with  an  affection 
exceedingly  rare  in  this  unpriestly  age." 

132 


"  The  lovely  day  became  a  still  lovelier  day  within,  enriched  by 
the  dyes  of  the  stained  windows  through  which  it  streamed." — 
Howe  lis 's  "'April  Hopes." 


133 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Adjacent  to  this  low  vine-covered  house  is 
the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 
where  Susan  ( E.  E.  Hale's  Susan's  Escort) 
attended  lectures  and  from  which  were  gradu- 
ated the  young  men  in  Miss  Reed's  Miss 
Theodora.  From  the  corner  where  we  are 
standing  stretches  out  to  the  right  of  us 
Copley  Square,  which,  with  its  beautiful  Trinity 
Church,  Art  Museum,  Public  Library  and  New 
Old  South  Church,  combine,  says  Margaret 
Alston,  to  form  the  most  interesting  Square 
architecturally  in  America.  Trinity,  with  its 
great  domed  interior,  harmonious  tones,  and 
peaceful  sanctity,  called  to  her  mind  the  char- 
acter of  the  man  who  had  unconsciously  built 
the  glory  of  this  edifice. 

Here  the  consecration  of  Mr.  Strathmore 
{The  Puritans)  took  place  on  a  "  beautiful 
June  day,  and  was  as  imposing  a  function  in 
its  line  as  Boston  had  ever  seen.  Trinity  was 
crowded  to  over-flowing,  and  if  the  ceremony 
was  less  imposing  than  would  have  been  the 
induction  of  a  Catholic  bishop,  it  was  impres- 
ts 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

sive  and  dignified.  The  sunlight  filtering 
through  the  windows  of  stained  glass  splashed 
fantastic  colours  over  the  long  surpliced  train 
which  wound  through  the  aisles  down  to  the 
chancel,  singing  processionals  of  joyous  hope  ; 
the  air  was  full  of  the  sense  of  solemn  meaning  • 
the  organ  pealed  ;  the  noble  words  of  the  fine 
old  ritual  spoke  to  the  hearts  of  the  hearers, 
and  carried  their  message  of  a  faith  which  took 
hold  upon  the  unseen.  Above  all  the  circum- 
stance, the  form,  the  conventions,  the  creeds, 
rose  the  spirit  of  the  worshipers,  uplifted  by 
the  thrilling  realization  of  the  outpouring  of 
the  soul  of  humanity  before  the  unknown 
Eternal." 

Miss  Theodora's  Earnest  attended  service 
here  Sunday  afternoons  content  to  stand  for 
an  hour  in  the  crowded  aisle  to  hear  the  up- 
lifting word  of  the  great  preacher,  while 
Howells  gives  us  a  picture  of  its  interior 
when  his  hero  and  heroine  of  April  Hopes 
are  finally  married  there. 

These  two  young  people,  earlier  in  the 
136 


35  « 


H  « 


137 


IN       AND       ABOU  T       B  ()  S  T  O  N 

novel  had  a  chance  encounter  at  the  Museum 
of  Fine  Arts  near  by,  a  place  also  identified 
with  the  Hartley  Hu bbards  (A  Modern  In- 
stance), who,  sometimes,  going  there  in  their 
early  Boston   days,   "  found   a  pleasure  in  the 


"  How  strange  that  we  should  meet  at  the 
Museum." — HowelWs  '■'April  Hopes." 


worst  things  which  the  best  never  afterward 
gave  them."  The  conventional  Edith  Cald- 
well is  persuaded  by  her  fiance,  Fenton, — 
that  Paean  of  The  Pagans,  to  sit  awhile  in  the 
picture  gallery  of  the  Art  Museum  while  he 
assures  her  they  are  in  no  danger  of  being 
seen   doing    anything   so   unconventional,    for 

139 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

the  Museum  "is  the  most  solitary  place  in  the 
city." 

The  new  Public  Library,  the  crowning 
possession  of  Boston,  plays  a  conspicuous 
part  in  Her  Boston  Experiences,  for  there  in 
Bates  Hall  occurred  the  incident  on  which  the 
romance  of  the  story  is  built.  Truth  Dexter, 
in  her  bewildering  attempt  to  digest  Boston 
came  frequently  to  the  Library  where,  we  are 
told,  Sargent's  celebrated  decorations  affected 
her  strangely.  "  I  don't  ever  expect  to  know 
what  it  all  means,"  she  said  earnestly.  "  Per- 
haps that's  why  I  never  get  tired  of  studying  it. 
All  that  chaotic  mystery  of  wings  and  lions, 
and  shadowy  creatures  makes  you  try  to  re- 
member something  that  must  have  been  aees 
and  ages  ago,  and  just  when  your  heart 
aches  so  that  it  seems  about  to  burst  and 
spill  out  the  secret,  then  the  old  prophets 
step  out  from  their  places,  and  tell  you  that 
there  is  no  use  trying.  I  can't  keep  away 
from  it." 

Studious  Mr.  Jenks  (Sawyer's  A  Local 
140 


id 


I 


" — the  latter-day  edition  of  the  historic  Old  South  Church. "- 
Margaret  A  lis  ton 's  "Her  Boston  Experiences.'''' 


141 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Habitation)  generally  put  in  his   Sundays  at 

the  Library,  which  this  fictitious  individual 
could  only  do  to-day  sub  rosa,  for  the  novel 
of  which  he  forms  a  part  has  been  debarred 
from  its  shelves. 

Across  from  the  Library  is  the  "  latter-day 
edition  of  the  historic  Old  South  Church, 
whose  congregation,  after  several  removals, 
has  settled  in  New  Boston,  a  long  distance 
from  the  original  site  of  the  church."  A 
block  farther  on  at  the  corner  of  Dartmouth 
and  Newbury  streets  we  find  the  Art  Club 
where  the  heroine  of  Her  Boston  Experi- 
ences was  taken  to  an  annual  exhibition  which 
"  seemed  to  be  but  a  social  gathering  decor- 
ated by  the  pictures  on  the  walls." 

Returning  past  the  church  and  down  Boyl- 
ston  street  a  block  to  Exeter,  we  come  upon 
the  new  hotel,  which  we  imagine  is  the  house 
described  as  The  Hanover  where  Craighead 
brought  his  bride  {Truth  Dexter}  and  en- 
deavored to  initiate  her  into  the  mysteries  of 
modern  apartment  house  life. 

143 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

VII.  THE  SOUTH  END 

WITH  the  exception  of  Mr.  Howells, 
and  more  recently  Walter  Leon 
Sawyer,  few  novelists  have  found 
inspiration  in  that — from  the  Back  Bay  point 
of  view — "  impossible  "  section  of  the  town 
known  as  the  South  End.  Mr.  Bates  felt  the 
outskirts  of  it  to  be  a  suitable  abiding  place 
for  the  equally  "impossible"  Mrs.  Amanda 
Welsh  Sampson  {The  Philistines),  who 
lived  "  at  the  top  of  a  speaking  tube  in 
one  of  those  apartment  hotels  which  stand 
upon  the  debatable  ground  between  the  select 
region  of  the  Back  Bay  and  the  scorned  pre- 
cincts of  the  South  End."  This,  we  suspect, 
is  Huntington  Avenue,  a  street  of  Notting- 
ham lace  curtains,  carefully  draped  back  to 
show  the  Rogers  Groups  on  neat  marble 
stands.  In  this  street  also  lived  Mr.  David 
Willis  (Aldrich's  Goliali),  and  the  same  de- 
batable ground  became  the  home,  after  Mrs. 
Kent's  death  {The  Sentimentalists),  of  Ver- 
non  and   his   sister.      Mrs.  A.  D.   T.  Whitney 

144 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

in   her  novel  Hitherto  calls  the  South  End  a 
piece    of     New    York     patched     on,    while     a 


L 


CONCORD    SQUARE 


"  He  had  not  built,  but  had  bought  very 
cheap  of  a  terrified  gentleman  of  good  extrac- 
tion, who  discovered  too  late  that  the  South  End 
was  not  the  thing." — Howells's  '■'■The  Rise  of 
Silas  Lap  ham." 

"  The  bit  of  Virginia  creeper  planted  under 
the  window  hung  shrivelled  upon  its  trellis." — 
"  Their   Wedding  Journey." 

younger  novelist,  in  referring  to  this  locality, 
says  it  was  laid  out  after  the  manner  of  New 
York  in  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  turn  the 
tide  of  fashion  away  from  Beacon  Street. 

145 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

But  because  it  was  unfashionable,  it  exactly 
suited  Colonel  Lapham  {The  Rise  of  Silas 
Lapham)  in  the  socially  unambitious  stage  of 
his  career.  "  He  had  not  built,  but  had 
bought  very  cheap  of  a  terrified  gentleman 
of  good  extraction,  who  discovered  too  late 
that  the  South  End  was  not  the  thing,  and 
who  in  the  eagerness  of  his  flight  to  the  Back 
Bay  threw  in  his  carpets  and  shades  for  al- 
most nothing."  This  locality  in  the  novel 
Mr.  Howells  calls  Nankeen  Square,  but  the 
actual  place  he  had  in  mind  is  Concord 
Square,  where  the  trees  in  the  pretty  oval 
make  as  charming  an  autumnal  display  as  in 
the  days  when  Penelope  Lapham  admired 
them.  Here  also  is  the  home  of  the  Marches 
{Their  Wedding  Journey)  with  its  bit  of 
Virginia  creeper  still  growing  over  the  win- 
dow as  the  novelist  describes. 

Harrison  Avenue,  "a  queer,  melancholy 
street,  which,  without  having  yet  accomplished 
its  destiny  as  a  business  thoroughfare,  is  no 
longer  the  home  of  decorous  ease,"  was  where 

146 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

the  Pythoness  lived  with  her  father  Dr.  Boyn- 
ton  (Howell's  An  Undiscovered  Country). 
This  avenue  is  called  by  Mr.  Howells  Pleas- 
ant in  The  Minister  s  Charge. 

Mr.  Henry  James  also  had  it  in  mind  in 
describing  the  home  of  Miss  Birdseye  {The 
Bostonians)  who  lived  in  a  row  of  red  houses 
with  protuberant  fronts,  approached  by  ladders 
of  stone.  Her  mansion  "had  a  salient  front, 
an  enormous  and  very  high  number — 756 — 
painted  in  gilt  on  the  glass  light  above  the 
door,  a  tin  sign  bearing  the  name  of  a 
doctress  suspended  from  one  of  the  windows 
of  the  basement  and  a  peculiar  look  of  be- 
ing- both  new  and  faded — a  kind  of  modern 
fatigue,  like  certain  articles  of  commerce 
which  are  sold  at  a  reduction  as  shop-worn." 
Here  Basil  was  taken  by  Olive  to  that  extra- 
ordinary meeting  made  memorable  to  him 
by  the  presence  of  Verena  Tarrent.  While 
Miss  Birdseye — "the  whole  moral  history 
of  Boston  was  reflected  in  her  displaced 
spectacles  " — was  herself    a  revelation  to  the 

147 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

southern  man  plunged  so  unexpectedly  into 
Olive's  set. 

We  are  given  to  understand  that  as  a 
typical  Bostonian  Olive  Chancellor  could  not 
fail  to  belong  to  a  "  set."  She  had  a  pref- 
erence for  what  she  called  real  people  and  there 
were  several  whose  reality  she  had  tested  by 
arts  known  to  herself.  This  little  society  was 
rather  suburban  than  miscellaneous  ;  it  was 
prolific  in  ladies  who  trotted  about  early  and 
late,  with  books  from  the  Athenaeum  nursed 
behind  their  muffs,  or  little  nosegays  of  ex- 
quisite flowers  that  they  were  carrying  as  pres- 
ents to  each  other — they  were  always  appar- 
ently straining  a  little,  as  if  they  might  be  too 
late  for  something." 

Near  Harrison  Avenue  is  upper  Washington 
Street  the  scene  of  A  Local  Habitation.  "Now 
that  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  region  of  homes,  all 
one  can  say  of  that  portion  of  Washington 
Street  which  lies  between  Waltham  and  North- 
ampton streets  is  that  it  will — sometime — be 
a  part  of  the  business  section.       In  the  course 

148 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

of  transition  it  has  already  passed  that  initial 
stage  in  which  every  other  basement  an- 
nounces '  Table  Board.'  It  is  now  the  field  on 
which  is  continually  re-enacted  the  Tragedy  of 
the  Small  Shop.  .  .  .  It  seemed  to  Carter  that 
with  the  exception  of  the  saloon,  which  was 
quite  at  home,  all  the  shops  wore  a  certain  air 
of  discouraged  effort.  Evidently  the  people 
who  lived  near  them  were  studious  of  bargains 
— which  they  sought  elsewhere." 

In  this  novel  Mr.  Sawyer  has  given  us  a 
sympathetic  study  of  a  South  End  lodg- 
ing house  —  a  form  of  realism  in  which 
Mr.  Howells  is  pre-eminent.  "  I  can  conceive," 
the  author  makes  one  of  the  lodgers  say,  "  that 
a  novelist  might  study  the  hearts  and  lives  of 
these  South-Enders,  and  then  display  them  to 
the  shame  of  more  fortunate  folk.  He  could 
tell  of  the  faithful  toil,  the  unremitting  self-de- 
nial, by  which  so  many  families  are  held 
together  in  homes  that  are  really  homes,  though 
they  stand  mid-way  the  pawnshop  and  the 
poorhouse.    .  .  .    He  would  show  how  the  poor 

149 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

help  the  poorer,  how  men  maintain  their  hon- 
esty and  women  their  chastity  though  pressed 
by  bitter  temptation  ;  how  the  worst  tenement 
in  the  meanest  street  may  shelter  people  who 
are  thoughtful  and  generous  and  kind." 

Mrs.  Keats  Bradford  in  Miss  Pool's  novel  of 
that  name  once  stopped  in  a  quiet  hotel  in  the 
South  End  where  she  was  as  much  by  herself 
as  if  she  were  in  a  foreign  town.  This  was, 
perhaps,  the  Commonwealth  Hotel,  at  the  west 
end  of  Worcester  Square  —  a  square  in  which 
we  linger  because  it  became  the  home  of  dear 
old  Jamie  McMurtagh  {Pirate  Gold)  when,  at 
the  time  of  the  marriage  of  Mercedes  to  St. 
Clair,  he  sold  the  house  in  Salem  Street.  The 
St.  Clairs  lived  with  him  in  this  new  and  pleas- 
ant place,  where  there  was  a  little  park  with 
trees  in  front,  and  the  novelist  tells  us  that  it 
delighted  the  unselfish  old  Jamie  to  let  St. 
Clair  away  early  from  the  bank  and  to  remain 
himself  alone  over  the  ledgers,  imagining  St. 
Clair  hurrying  home,  and  the  greeting  kiss, 
and  the  walk  they  got  along  the  shells   of  the 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

beach  before  supper,  with  the  setting  sun  slant- 
ing to  them  over  the  wide  bay  from  the  Brook- 
line  hills. 

Columbus  Avenue,  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent of  the  South  End  streets,  is  the  locality 
to  which  the  Kents  moved  from  Beacon  Hill 
and  is  graphically  described  by  Mr.  Pier  in 
The  Sentimentalists.  "In  this  region,"  he  says, 
"  the  streets  are  flat,  treeless  ashpalted  wastes, 
lined  with  brick  shells,  in  most  of  which  the 
vestibules  bear  a  perferation  of  electric  but- 
tons and  suggest  the  but  recently  abated  pres- 
ence of  a  slovenly  scrub-woman.  The  window- 
curtains  are  uniformly  of  frowsy  lace  ;  there 
are  at  intervals  little  bakeries  and  restaurants, 
all  of  which  have  lace  curtains.  .  .  .  The  dis- 
trict is  peopled  largely  with  those  who  board  ; 
with  students  in  schools  of  oratory  and  ex- 
pression, music  students,  art  students,  seams- 
tresses and  shop-girls.  The  apartment-houses 
are  tenanted  by  different  classes  ;  by  hard- 
working artisans  and  their  families,  by  quacks, 
by  persons  who   range  from   the  acme  of  the 

151 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

commonplace  to  the  abominable  of  Bohemia, 
and  by  clerks  and  professional  men,  whose 
ambition  has  faded,  year  by  year,  yet  who,  in 


28  RUTLAND  SQUARE THE  HOME  OF  MRS. 

LOUISE  CHANDLER  MOULTON 

"London  was    in    the   air  at    this    house. "— 
Margaret  Allston  s  "Her  Boston  Experiences. 


their  humble  surroundings,  rear  their  children 
with  all  the  watchful  love  and  eager  hope  of 
those  more  fortunate  brethren  whose  poor 
hacks  they  are." 

152 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Running  off  this  avenue,  another  novel- 
ist tells  us  are  the  most  interesting  domestic 
squares  in  Boston,  and  in  one  of  them,  in 
Number  28  Rutland  Square,  we  find  the  home 
of  that  charming  poet  and  author,  Mrs.  Louise 
Chandler  Moulton,  who,  we  are  informed  by 
the  heroine  of  Her  Boston  Experiences,  never 
makes  calls,  but  receives  in  salon  fashion  once 
a  week.  London  was  in  the  air  at  this  house 
where  Margaret  Alston  spent  her  most  inter- 
esting half-hour,  sociallv,  in  Boston. 


153 


IN   OLD  BOSTON 


I.  ABOUT  THE  WHARVES 

THE  fictional  rambler  who  strolls  down 
among  the  wharves  at  the  lower  end 
of  the  old  part  of  the  city  will  find 
stretched  out  a  vista  of  romance  from  the 
days  of  the  departure  and  return,  in  1 745  of 
the  Louisburg  heroes  of  which  Bynner  writes 
in  Agnes  Surriage,  to  the  stirring  old  East 
India  days  in  the  first  half  of  the  last  century 
of  which  Mr.  Howells  in  A  Woman  s  Reason 
and  Mr.  Stimson  in  Pirate  Gold  tell  so  sym- 
pathetically. 

Agnes  Surriage  "  the  maid  of  Marblehead  " 
during  her  first  months  in  Boston  loved  to 
frequent  these  docks  where  the  bustling  fa- 
miliar scene  brought  back  to  her  the  associa- 
tions  of  her  fisher  home  ;  and  there  she  fled, 

157 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 

turning  as  if  by  natural  instinct  to  the  sea 
when  smarting  under  the  humiliation  of  Frank- 
land's  compromising  proposal.  Hers  was,  as 
Holmes  says, 

"  The  old,  old  story— fair,  and young , 
And  fond, — and  not  too  wise, — 
That  matrons  tell,  with  sharpened  tongue, 
To  maids  with  downcast  eyes." 

and  so  closely  does  the  novel  follow  the  facts 
of  her  remarkable  and  actual  career  that  it  is 
difficult  to  tell  where  truth  leaves  off  and  fiction 
begins.  Bynner  gives  us  one  of  his  many 
pictures  of  her  in  this  locality  on  Long  Wharf 
at  the  foot  of  State  Street. 

Here  where  commercial  trafic  jostles  the 
elbow  we  will  continue  our  rambles,  lingering 
to  conjure  up  in  imagination  that  memorable 
day  as  described  by  the  novelist  when  the  re- 
turn of  the  Louisburg  expedition  set  the  town 
agog. 

Agnes — having  harkened  to  the  voice  of 
the  tempter — was  then  living  with  Frankland, 
the  dashing  young  Collector,  but  had  not  per- 

158 


I  remember  the  black  wharves  and  the  slips 

And  the  sea-tides  tossing  free  ; 
And  the  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded  lips, 
And  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  the  ships  ; 

And  the  magic  of  the  sea. 

— Longfellow's  "Lost  Youth" 


159 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

mitted  herself  to  appear  in  public  until  that 
day  when,  roused  by  the  excitement  of  the 
occasion  and  yielding  to  his  entreaties,  she 
consented  to  drive  with  him  to  King,  now 
State  Street,  where  the  fine  equipage  took  its 
place  in  the  great  throng  of  vehicles  on  the 
way  down  to  Long  Wharf  to  help  Warren 
and  Pepperel  ashore.  "  Boston,"  says  Bynner, 
"  had  known  few  such  opportunities  for  a 
pageant.  Nature,  too,  conspired  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  occasion  by  making  that  first  of 
June  a  radiant  day.  The  whole  populace 
came  forth  to  celebrate  their  first  great  mili- 
tary achievement,  now  renowned  throughout 
the  world."  Poor  Agnes,  embarrassed  by  the 
stares  of  the  curious  took  no  pleasure  in  the 
excitement,  but  the  Collector's  blood  was  fired 
and  they  remained  in  the  crowd  at  the  wharf 
until  the  heroes  had  landed  and  marched, 
followed  by  the  shouting  populace  to  the  Town 
House. 

This  Long  Wharf  has  played  a  particularly 
conspicuous    part    in  Boston  fiction.      Histori- 

161 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

cally  it  was  the  scene  of  so  many  stirring 
events  that  it  is  small  wonder  the  romancer 
has  spun  his  delicate  web  about  it.  There 
Cooper's  Lionel  Lincoln  landed  from  England 
on  an  early  April  morning  in  1775,  and  a 
dreary  place  he  appears  to  have  found  it. 
The  wharves  were  naked,  Cooper  tells  us. 
"  A  few  neglected  and  dismantled  ships  were 
lying  at  different  points  ;  but  the  hum  of  busi- 
ness, the  forests  of  masts,  and  the  rattling  of 
wheels  which  at  that  early  hour  should  have 
distinguished  the  creat  mart  of  the  colonies, 
were  wanting.  In  their  places  were  to  be 
heard  at  'intervals,  the  sudden  burst  of  distant 
martial  music,  the  riotous  merriment  of  the 
soldiery  who  frequented  the  taverns  at  the 
water's  edge,  or  the  sullen  challenges  of  the 
sentinels  from  the  vessels  of  war,  as  they  vexed 
the  progress  of  the  few  boats  which  the  inhab- 
itants still  used  in  their  ordinary  pursuits." 

At  this  wharf  a  year  later  were  the  boats  which 
carried  many  of  the  British  troops  to  Breed's 
Hill,    among  them    "Wolfe's  own"  of  which 

162 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Lionel  Lincoln  was  the  Major,  left  behind  on 
that  memorable  day,  Cooper  explains,  because 
Gage  saw  fit  to  fill  his  place  with  another  and, 
he  said,  a  less  important  man.  A  brilliant 
scene  was  the  departure  of  the  over-confident 
troops  whose  officers  thought  it  was  to  be 
merely  an  affair  of  out-posts.  The  following 
year  when  the  royal  army  was  rapidly  retiring, 
Sir  Lionel  Lincoln,  baronet  by  the  recent 
death  of  his  father,  embarked  in  a  small  boat 
from  Loner  Wharf  for  the  British  frigate 
which  carried  him  and  his  pretty  kinswoman, 
Cecil  Dynevor,  whom  he  had  married,  back 
to  England  and  their  baronial  estates. 

At  the  head  of  Long  Wharf  old  Deacon 
Shem  Drowne,  who  is  not  a  fictitious  person, 
but  has  been  immortalized  by  Hawthorne  in 
his  Mosses  From  an  Old  Manse,  had  his  shop 
just  at  the  water's  edge.  This  was  when 
the  water's  ed^e  meant  where  the  Custom 
House  is  now  standing.  Hawthorne  tells 
us  that  men  of  taste  about  the  wharf  were 
wont  to  show  their  love  for  the  arts  by  fre- 

163 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 


THE    INSPIRATION    OF    A    BIT    OF 
HAWTHORNE    ALLEGORY 


quent  visits  to  Drowne's 
workshop  where  his 
wooden  images  excited 
not  only  their  admira- 
tion but  that  of 
Copley,  the  artist, 
who  was  an  occa- 
sional v  isitor. 
Here  came  the  jo- 
vial Captain  Hun- 
newell  to  order  for 
his  Cynosure — ■ 
"  the  sweetest  craft 
that  ever  floated," 
such  a  figurehead 
as  old  Neptune 
never  saw  in  his 
life.  The  Captain 
had  his  own  ideas 
about  this  image 
which  touched 
Drowne  with  such 
inspiration  that  he 


164 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

produced  a  masterpiece  the  like  of  which 
the  good  old  town  had  never  seen  carved 
from  an  oaken  log-.  An  exquisite  female 
figure  it  was,  endowed  with  such  natural- 
ness that  on  first  seeing  it  persons  felt  im- 
pelled to  remove  their  hats  and  pay  such  rev- 
erence as  was  due  to  the  richly  dressed  and 
beautiful  young  lady  who  actually  seemed  to 
stand  in  a  corner  of  the  room  with  oaken  chips 
and  shavings  scattered  at  her  feet.  Haw- 
thorne further  gives  his  imagination  full  play 
in  picturing  Drowne  a  modern  Pygmalion  dis- 
covered by  his  townsmen  kneeling  at  the  feet 
of  the  oaken  lady  while  gazing  with  a  lover's 
passionate  ardor  into  the  face  his  own  hands 
had  created. 

The  Cynosure  with  its  remarkable  figure 
head  has  sailed  into  oblivion,  but  a  reduced 
likeness  of  its  jovial  Captain  is  preserved  for 
us  in  the  Shem  Drowne  figure  of  Admiral 
Vernon,  finished  shortly  after  the  Cynosure 
sailed.  This  imaee  never  took  its  rightful 
place  on  the  prow  of  a  vessel  but  became  the 

165 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

picturesque  sign  at  the  doorway  of  a  shop  at 
the  head  of  Long  Wharf,  where  since  1770  it 
has  stolidly  gazed  at  the  passer  by,  to  be  re- 
moved within  a  few  months  to  a  window  in 
Central  Street,  nearby. 

The  quaint  little  man  holding  a  telescope 
and  quadrant  does  not  present  a  very  jovial 
aspect,  but  he  is  stylishly  dressed  in  the  cos- 
tume of  the  period  as  Hawthorne  describes. 
The  paint  is  somewhat  worn  from  his  gayly- 
coloured  clothes,  but  he  presents  a  dignified  ap- 
pearance and  commands  respect  from  the 
passer-by  as  the  inspiration  of  a  bit  of  Haw- 
thorne allegory.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  that  the 
romancer  liked  to  linger  about  the  old  shop  of 
which  the  Admiral  Vernon  sign  formed  a  part, 
for,  situated  at  that  time  at  the  corner  of  State 
and  Broad  streets  in  a  block  recently  torn 
down,  it  was  a  veritable  antiquity  with  its  quaint 
nautical  instrument  business  established  in 
1770  when  State  was  King  Street.  One  won- 
ders if  Dickens  did  not  stroll  in  there  during 
his  Boston  visit  and  find  in  the  image  a  sug- 

166 


IN       AND       A  li  0  U  T       K  O  S  T  O  N 


gestion     for    the    little     figure    displayed    by 
Walter's  uncle  in  Domby  and  Son. 

Since  i  720  there  has  been  standing  on  Long 
Wharf  the  Salt  House,  of  literary  interest  as 
being  the  place  where  Hawthorne  wrote  the 
Scarlet  Letter.  He  used 
a  little  back  room  on 
the  top  floor  which,  we 
are  told,  had  the  only 
window  in  the  upper 
story  that  looked  out 
on  T  wharf,  and  the 
ceiling  was  so  low  that, 
on  entering,  a  tall  man 
with  a  high  hat  had  to 
stoop.  It  is  probable 
that  the  romancer  did 
not  find  this  fact  at  all 
disturbing.  The  room  which  underwent  the 
usual  changes  when  some  years  ago  the  build- 
ing was  remodeled  is  now  occupied  by  pros- 
perous fish  merchants.  That  classic  shades 
hover  over  their  prosaic  offices  is  unsuspected 

167 


i'HE  OLD  SALT    HOUSE,  WHERE 

HAWTHORNE  WROTE  "THE 

SCARLET    LETTER  " 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

by  the  present  occupants,  one  of  the  oldest  of 
whom  when  told  recently  that  Hawthorne  was 
identified  with  the  place,  said  he  guessed  not, 
there'd  been  no  such  person  in  the  business  in 
his  time  and  he'd  known  the  Salt  House  in 
and  out  for  sixty  years  ! 

Captain  Moore  Carew,  the  hero  of  F.  J. 
Stimson's  King  Noanett,  in  search  of  work 
tries  the  counting  rooms  of  Long  Wharf  to  be 
refused  by  one  prim  old  gentleman  after  an- 
other. And  from  the  same  wharf  in  search  of 
further  adventures  he  later  set  sail  for  the 
Barbadoes.  In  his  Two  Years  Before  the 
Mast  Richard  Henry  Dana,  junior,  writes  sym- 
pathetically of  approaching  the  wharves  on  his 
return  voyage  and  the  joy  of  hearing,  floating 
out  to  him  across  the  water,  the  bells  of  the 
Old  South. 

A  few  steps  south  of  Long  is  India  Wharf, 
during  the  first  half  of  the  last  century  as 
crowded  with  commercial  interest  as  were 
its  warehouses  with  the  spices  of  the 
East.     A  counting  room  there  was  more  than 

168 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

a  badge  of  respectability,  it  marked  its  owner 
as  an  aristocrat.  At  the  head  of  India  Wharf, 
two  flights  up  in  an  old  granite  building,  was 
the  counting  room  of  James  Bowdoin's  Sons 
which  is  the  scene  of  much  of  the  story  of 
Pirate  Gold.  Mr.  Stimson  calls  it  India 
Wharf  in  his  novel,  but  the  actual  counting 
room  which  he  had  in  mind  was  that  of  Mr. 
Josiah  Bradlee,  a  famous  old  Boston  mer- 
chant, whose  warehouses  are  standing  to-day 
on  Central  Wharf,  which  lies  next  to  India. 
A  style  of  office  now  extinct  was  Mr.  James 
Bowdoin's  :  "The  floor  of  the  room  was  bare. 
Between  the  windows  on  one  side,  was  an 
open  empty  stove ;  on  the  other  were  two 
high  desks,  with  stools.  An  eight-day  clock 
ticked  comfortably  on  the  wall,  and  on  either 
side  of  it  were  two  pictures,  wood-cuts,  eked  out 
with  rude  splashes  of  red  and  blue  by  some 
primitive  process  of  lithography  ;  the  one 
represented  '  The  Take  of  a  Right  Whale 
in  Behring's  Sea  by  the  Good  Adventure 
Barque  out  of  New  Bedford  ;'  and  the  other 

169 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

the  '  Landing  of  His  Majesty's  Troops  in 
Boston,  His  Majesty's  province  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bayin  New  England,  1766.'  There 
was  not  a  sea  on  earth,  probably  that  did  not 
bear  its  boundary  ship  sent  out  from  that 
small  office.  And  if  it  was  still  in  there,  it 
had  a  cosmopolitan,  aromatic  smell  ;  for  every 
strange  letter  or  foreign  sample  with  which 
the  place  was  littered  bespoke  the  business  of 
the  bright,  blue  world  outside." 

Strolling  into  the  old  granite  building  at 
the  head  of  Central  Wharf  and  climbing  up 
the  stairway  to-day,  one  expects  to  overtake 
the  infuriated  Mr.  James  Bowdoin  going  up 
through  the  cloud  of  aromatic  dust,  which  his 
fun-loving  son,  literally  following  certain  pre- 
emptory  orders,  had  made  by  sweeping  stairs 
unswept  for  years.  It  is  interesting  to  know 
that  the  delightful  eccentricities  of  the  lovable 
Mr.  James  Bowdoin  existed  in  his  prototype, 
Mr.  Josiah  Bradlee,  who  is  well  remembered 
by  present-day  Bostonians. 

The  romantic  side  of  the  trade  of  the  Orient 
170 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTO N 

is  graphically  described  in  A  Woman 's  /wv?- 
.tt?#,  by  Howells,  who  places  the  counting-room 
of  the  father  of  the  heroine  on  India  wharf. 
Harkness  was  one  of  the  last  of  the  East  India 
merchants,  and  Captain  Butler  said  it  made  one 
think  of  the  ancient  regime  to  look  at  him.  The 
two  men  reminisced  one  day  in  Mr.  Harkness's 
library  over  the  departed  glories  of  what  they 
called  the  grandest  commerce  in  the  world  — 
with  Helen  Harkness  for  an  enraptured  audi- 
ence. To  Helen,  India  Wharf  meant  only  the 
place  "the  Nahant  boat  starts  from"  and  that 
is  largely  what  it  means  to  the  younger  gen- 
eration to-day.  But  her  father  clung  to  the 
old  traditions  and  so  did  old  Mr.  James  Bow- 
doin,  who,  in  spite  of  the  great  changes  in  the 
business  which  he  lived  to  see,  never  failed  to 
get  very  early  to  the  little  counting-room  as  in 
the  days  when  he  might  hope  to  find  some 
ship  of  his  own,  fresh  from  the  Orient,  warp- 
ing into  the  dock. 

The  wharves  in  the  times  just  following  the 
Revolution  play  an  important  part  in  Bynner's 

171 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Zachary  PJiips  for  Scarlett's  Wharf  was  a 
favorite  haunt  of  Zach.  This  wharf  no  longer 
remains,  but  it  stood  in  former  days  at  the  foot 
of  Fleet  Street,  then  called  Scarlett's  Wharf 
Lane,  and  Bynner  pictures  a  bustling  scene  of 
'longshoremen,  stevedores,  and  sailors  rolling 
casks,  carrying  bags  and  sacks  with  the  usual 
accompaniment  of  shouting  and  cursing.  Such 
an  atmosphere  was  fascinating  to  a  boy  of 
Zach's  temperament  and  it  is  no  astonishment 
to  learn  that  sneaking  on  to  a  vessel  at  the 
edge  of  the  dock,  Zach,  one  day,  ran  off  to 
sea. 

These  wharves  come  into  some  prominence 
in  Holme's  The  Guardian  Angel  during  the 
search  so  humorously  described,  of  the  two 
young  men  and  rivals,  Murray  Bradshaw  and 
Cyprian  Eveleth  for  the  missing  Myrtle  Haz- 
ard. Murray  visited  all  the  wharves,  enquir- 
ing on  every  vessel  where  it  seemed  possible 
she  might  have  been  looking  about.  On  Sun- 
day he  learned  that  "  a  youth  corresponding  to 
his  description  of  Myrtle  in  her  probable  dis- 

172 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

guise  had  been  that  morning  on  board  the 
Swordfish —  doubtless  intending  to  take  pass- 
age in  her.  The  next  morning  he  walked 
down  to  the  wharf,  where  the  Swordfish  was 
moored.  The  ship  had  left  the  wharf 
and  was  lying  out  in  the  stream.  A  small 
boat  had  just  reached  her,  and  a  slender 
youth,  as  he  appeared  at  the  distance,  climbed, 
not  over  adroitly,  up  the  vessel's  side.  Mur- 
ray Bradshaw  called  to  a  boatman  nearby  and 
ordered  the  man  to  row  him  over  as  fast  as  he 
could  to  the  vessel  lying  in  the  stream.  He 
had  no  sooner  reached  the  deck  of  the  Sword- 
fish  than  he  asked  for  the  young  person  who 
had  just  been  put  on  board."  Told  that 
he  was  below  "his  heart  beat,  in  spite  of 
his  cool  temperament,  as  he  went  down  the 
steps  leading  to  the  cabin.  The  young 
person  was  talking  earnestly  to  the  Cap- 
tain, and,  on  his  turning  round,  Mr.  William 
Murray  Bradshaw  had  the  pleasure  of  rec- 
ognizing his  young  friend,  Mr.  Cyprian 
Eveleth !" 

173 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Docks  like  these  of  the  novelists  were  Long- 
fellow's : 

black  wharves  and  the  slips, 


And  the  sea-tides  tossing  free, 
And  the  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded  lips, 
And  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  the  ships, 

And  the  magic  of  the  sea. 

Passing  northward  up  Atlantic  Avenue  which 
skirts  the  margin  of  the  water,  we  pause  a  mo- 
ment before  turning  into  Fleet  Street  to  re- 
member that,  where  modern  ware-houses  and 
stores  are  stretched  interminably  once  stood 
the  home  of  that  much  loved  character  in  fic- 
tion, Trueman  Flint,  the  hero  of  Maria  Cum- 
mins's  The  Lamplighter.  Two  generations 
recall  and  discuss  with  a  third  to-day  the  for- 
tunes of  Gerty,  the  heroine.  This  novel  be- 
longs to  the  semi-romantic  class  of  literature, 
but  has  retained  its  immense  hold  on  the  pub- 
lic because  of  the  noble,  endearing  qualities  of 
the  old  Lamplighter  around  whom  the  elabor- 
ate plot  is  woven.  Undoubtedly  he  was  a 
true  character.   "  Of  course,"  asserted  a  young 

174 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

admirer,  "  Wasn't  his  name  Trueman?"  Per- 
haps she  and  Miss  Cummins  may  not  have 
had  the  same  interpretation  of  the  hero's  name, 
but  if  he  was  not  "true"  at  the  beginning,  true 
he  has  become  to  thousands  of  readers  to 
whom  the  author  has  made  him  so  convincing. 
Poor  as  he  was,  his  home,  she  is  very  particular 
to  tell  us,  was  a  decent,  two-storied  house  with 
a  small,  narrow  enclosed  yard  and  a  little  gate 
close  to  the  sidewalk.  True  lodged  in  the 
back  of  the  house  and  a  veritable  paradise  it 
seemed  to  Gertie  when  he  took  the  little  waif 
in  to  "  bide  "  with  him. 

The  neighbourhood  is  full  of  associations 
with  this  loving  and  much  loved  pair,  and  lin- 
oferinof  at  the  water's  edsje  one  looks  about, 
alas  !  in  vain,  for  that  fascinating  wood-yard 
the  sanctum  of  Gerty,  where,  "  out  of  sight  of 
the  houses  there  was  an  immense  pile  of  tim- 
ber of  different  lengths  and  unevenly  placed, 
the  planks  forming  on  one  side  a  series  of 
irregular  steps  by  which  it  was  easy  to  climb 
up.      Near  the  top  was  a  little  sheltered  recess 

175 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

overhung  by  some  long  planks,  and  forming  a 
miniature  shed,  protected  by  the  wood  on  all 
sides  but  one,  and  from  that  looking  out  upon 
the  water.  To  escape  from  the  old  shrew, 
Nan  Grant  with  whom  she  lived,  and  spend 
hours  in  this  retreat  watching  the  lively  sailors 
at  work,  was  all  the  happiness  little  Gerty  knew 
until  she  was  taken  into  the  home  of  the 
Lamplighter. 

II.  THE  HEART  OF  THE  OLD 
NORTH  END 

OF  the  Old  North  End,  as  the  novelists 
have  depicted  it,  there  is  to-day  more 
trace  than  the  casual  reader  or  rambler 
would  fancy.  History  and  romance  are  de- 
lightfully interwoven  in  much  of  the  fiction 
which  treats  of  this  section  of  the  town. 
Leaving  Atlantic  Avenue  and  the  wharves  it 
is  interesting  to  turn  up  old  Fleet  Street — so 
named  when  it  grew  from  Scarlett's  Wharf 
Lane  to  the  dignity  of  a  street  in  1708,  and 
give  oneself    up  to  the  world  of  Cooper,  Byn- 

176 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

ner,  Hawthorne,  Stimson  and  Lydia  Maria 
Child,  whose  semi-historical  characters,  to  the 
imaginative,  people  the  crooked  old  streets 
swarming  in  reality  with  the  mixed  foreign 
element  which  pervades  the  North  End. 
These  writers  saturated  themselves  with  the 
atmosphere  of  the  town,  which  was  the  more 
easy  for  Cooper,  perhaps,  for  in  1824  when  he 
came  on  to  Boston  and  prowled  around  the 
North  End  to  tret  his  local  colour  for  Lionel 
Lincoln,  many  of  the  landmarks  were  standing, 
notably  the  Sir  Henry  Frankland  House 
which  he  describes  as  Mrs.  Lechmeres's  in  the 
novel,  and  where,  tradition  has  it,  he  stayed 
while  collecting  his  material. 

This  locality  in  Colonial  days  held  the  Bos- 
ton world  of  wealth  and  fashion,  and  we  do 
not  go  far  up  Fleet  Street  before  coming  to 
little  Garden  Court  Street,  now  a  block  of 
shabby  brick  houses,  but  in  former  days  the 
mansions  of  Sir  Harry  Frankland  and  Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson,  side  by  side,  occupied  the 
entire  square  from    Fleet  to     Prince    Streets. 

177 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Then  the  street  was  known  as  Friezel  Court 
and  a  most  detailed  description  of  the  Hutch- 
inson mansion  with  its  gardens  running  back 


"  Both  paused  for  a  moment  opposite  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor's elegant  mansion." — Lydia  AT. 
Child's  "The  Rebels" 

"  There's  palaces  for  you!  Stingy  Tommy  lived 
in  the  one  with  the  pile-axters,  and  the  flowers 
hanging  to  their  tops. " —  Cooper's  '  ''Lionel  Lincoln." 

to  Fleet  and  Hanover  Streets  is  given  by  Miss 
Child  in  The  Rebels.  The  large  brick  house 
was  ornamented  in  front  with  four  Corinthian 
pilasters  and  the  novelist  tells  us  that  when  the 
Lieutenant-Governor's  young  nephew,  Captain 
Somerville    arrived     from    England,    he  was 

178 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

struck  by  the  uncommon  beauty  of  the  inter- 
ior. "  The  entrance  Hall  displayed  a  spa- 
cious arch  richly  carved  and  gilded  and  orna- 
mented with  busts  and  statues.  The  light 
streamed  full  on  the  soul-beaming  countenance 
of  Cicero  and  playfully  flickered  on  the  brow  of 
Tulliola.  The  panelling  of  the  parlor  was  of 
the  dark,  richly  shaded  mahogany  of  St. 
Domingo  elaborately  ornamented.  Busts  of 
George  III.  and  his  young  queen  were  placed 
in  front  of  a  splendid  mirror  with  bronze  lamps 
on  each  side  with  beautiful  transparencies,  one 
representing  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish 
armada,  the  other  orivinor  a  ^ne  v}ew  0f  a  fleet 
of  line-of-battle  ships,  drawn  up  before  the 
rock  of  Gibraltar." 

In  this  room  transpired  many  of  the  scenes 
in  The  Rebels,  notably  the  brilliant  gathering 
assembled  for  the  marriage  of  the  Governor's 
niece  Lucretia  Fitzherbert  to  his  nephew  Cap- 
tain Summerville  when  that  spirited  young 
woman  interrupted  the  ceremony  to  jilt  the 
bridegroom  and    expose   his  perfidy  to  the  as- 

179 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

tounded  guests.  More  thrilling  things  than 
these  happened  in  the  library  of  the  house  on 
a  night  early  in  the  story  when  the  Governor 
and  Dr.  Byles  were  quietly  deciphering  a 
manuscript  brought  over  from  England  by  the 
young  captain.  Take  a  peep  into  this  room  of 
the  scholar  and  the  antiquarian  and  see  how 
splendidly  it  was  hung  with  canvas  tapestry, 
"  on  which  was  blazoned  the  coronation  of 
George  II.,  here  and  there  interspersed  with 
the  royal  arms.  The  portraits  of  Anne 
and  the  two  Georges  hung  in  massive  frames 
of  antique  splendour,  and  the  crowded  shelves 
were  surmounted  with  busts  of  the  house  of 
Stuart." 

Into  this  scholarly  atmosphere  came  Somer- 
ville  with  news  of  the  infuriated  state  of  the 
populace  outside,  which  hardly  had  he  imparted 
when  the  mob  was  heard  at  the  doors  crying 
vengeance  on  "  stingy  Tommy,"  heartily  de- 
tested. The  family  escaped  through  the  gar- 
den and  the  mob  wreaked  its  anger  on  the 
house  which  half  were  for  burning,  but  satis- 

180 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

fied  themselves  by  joining  the  others  in  ruth- 
lessly destroying  the  beauty  of  the  interior. 
The  library  particularly  suffered.  Books  were 
stripped  from  their  covers,  manuscripts  torn  to 
pieces,  the  royal  portraits  rent  from  top  to  bot- 
tom, and  the  beautiful  swan-like  neck  of  Mary 
Stuart  was  all  that  remained  of  the  proud  line 
of  busts. 

Next  door  to  this  mansion  stood  the  scarcely 
less  noted  one  of  Sir  Harry  Frankland,  from 
the  windows  of  which  the  self-imprisoned,  un- 
happy Agnes  Surriage,  in  fact  as  well  as  in  fic- 
tion (Bynner's  Agnes  Surriage),  wistfully  gazed 
down  upon  those  haughty  dames  who  passed 
her  by.  Plain  to  severity  was  the  exterior  of 
Collector  Frankland's  house,  but  this,  the  novel- 
ist assures  us,  was  merely  an  architectural  mask 
— a  Puritanical  cloak,  as  it  were,  covering  the 
swashing  bravery  of  a  Royalist  and  courtier. 
A  buffet  groaning  with  massive  plate  and  a 
cellar  stocked  with  choicest  wines  were  not  the 
least  of  the  ornaments  of  a  luxurious  house,  the 
grand    staircase    of   which    was  so  broad  and 

o 

1S1 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

easy  of  ascent  that  Frankland  used  to  ride  his 
pony  up  and  down.  Like  a  body  reft  of  its 
soul  Agnes  sat  amid  the  splendour  of  her  new 


"  Plain  to  severity  was  the  exterior  of  the  collec- 
tor's house,  but  this  was  merely  an  architectural 
mask,  a  Puritanical  cloak,  as  it  were,  covering  the 
swashing  bravery  of  a  Royalist  and  courtier." — 
Bynner's  "Agnes  Surriage." 


home,  and  departed  from  it  with  thankfulness 
when  eventually  they  took  up  their  residence 
at  Hopkinton. 

Using  this  Frankland  house,  which  he  places 
in  Tremont  Street,  as  the  abode  of  the  aristo- 

182 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 


cratic  Mrs.  Lech  mere,  the  aunt  of  Lionel  Lin- 
coln, Cooper  describes  it  at  length  as  the  most 
splendid  in  the  town.  He  permits  his  hero  to 
dwell  there  for  some  time  as  the  guest  of  his 
aunt  and  young  cousins,  one  of  whom  he  mar- 
ries while  the  other, 
Agnes  Dan  forth,  marry- 
ing an  American  officer, 
continues  to  live  in  the 
old  house  after  her 
oreat-aunt's  death. 

Garden  Court  Street 
leads  directly  into 
North  Square,  always 
a  triangle,  where  on  the 
north  side  stands  to- 
day the  house  of  Paul 
Revere  from  which  he 
started  on  that  famous  ride  which  Long-- 
fellow  has  made  immortal.  The  little  frame 
house  is  not  imposing,  having  sunk  to  the 
level  of  an  Italian  shop  and  tenement,  but 
it     is    interesting    to    the    rambler    as    beingf 

183 


THE  HOME  OF  PAUL 
REVERE 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

one   of    the    few  old    North    End    houses  re- 
maining. 

Turn  east  and  pass  out  North  Square 
through  Moon,  which  is  just  below  Garden 
Court  Street.  Hereon  the  east  side,  halfway 
between  the  Square  and  Fleet  Street,  Sir 
Harry  Frankland  had  as  his  neighbour  the 
witty  Rev.  Samuel  Mather,  with  whom  he 
loved  to  parley.  Bynner  {Agnes  Surriage)  de- 
scribes their  meeting  one  evening  in  Moon 
Street,  when  the  eccentric  parson  urged  him 
to  come  to  prayer  meeting,  promising  to  make 
him  a  special  subject  of  supplication  in  return 
for  the  box  of  lemons  the  Collector  had  sent 
him.  To  which  Frankland  makes  reply  that 
he  had  ample  payment  in  the  clever  verses  re- 
turned. These  verses  written  February  20, 
1757,  were  as  follows  : — 

You  know  fr oi7i  Eastern  India  tame 

The  skill  of  making  punch,  as  did  the  name; 

And  as  the  name  consists  of  letters  five, 

By  five  ingredients  it  is  kept  alive, 

To  purest  water  sugar  must  be  joined 

With  these  the  grateful  acid  is  combined; 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Some  any  sours  they  get  contented  use, 
But  men  of  taste  do  that  from  Tagus  choose. 
When  now  these  three  are  mixed  with  care, 
Then  added  be  of  spirit  a  small  share  ; 
And  thai  you  may  the  drink  quite  perfect  see, 
Atop  the  musky  nut  must  grated  be. 

From  Moon  pass  into  Fleet  Street  and 
down  to  North,  turning-  east  a  block  to  Clark 
Street  where  we  do  not  see  the  present  squalor 
but  instead  conjure  up  the  old  "  Ship  Tavern," 
a  famous  ordinary  to  which  Bynner's  Zachary 
Phips  used  frequently  to  be  running  after 
'baccy  for  the  sailors,  and  there  Mr.  James 
(Stimson's  Pirate  Gold)  sometimes  took  his 
father,  Mr.  James  Bowdoin,  for  a  glass  of 
flip. 

A  short  distance  along  North  Street  Salu- 
tation Alley  strikes  across  to  Hanover  and 
retains  one  at  least  of  the  characteristics  fic- 
tion has  ascribed  to  it,  for  the  narrowest  street 
in  the  town  it  was  and  is,  and  in  it  stood  a 
quaint  hostelry  called  Salutation  Tavern  or 
"  The  Two  Palavers,"  where  Agnes  {Agues 
Siirriage)  went  in   search   of  Job  Redden  and 

1S5 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


found  him  in  the  tap-room.  In  her  excite- 
ment it  is  doubtful  if  she  took  note  of  the 
quaint  sign-board  on  which  were  painted  two 
old  gossips  in  the  act  of  greeting,  which 
gave  the  name  to  both  inn  and  street. 

Farther  down  the  al- 
ley was  the  home  of 
Zach  (Zachary  Phips) 
who  seldom  entered  his 
father's  home  by  the 
street  door,  but  pre- 
ferred the  rear  by  way 
of  the  ararden  which 
stretched  back  to  Bat- 
tery Street.  And  here 
Job  Pray  brought  Li- 
■«  He  wended  his  way  to  Sal-    onel    (Cooper's   Lionel 

utation    Alley." — Bvnner  s    Za-       7-   •  7    \  1  J 

chary  Phips."  Lincoln),  on  that  round- 

about excursion  through  narrow  and  gloomy 
streets,  terminating  at  Copp's  Hill. 

Salutation  Street,  or  Alley,  as  in  the  old 
days  it  was  called,  comes  out  opposite  Charter 
Street,  and   it   is  a  walk   of  three  short  blocks 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

up  Hanover  to  North  Bennett  Street  where- 
Master  Tileston,  a  personage  in  his  day,  taught 
not  only  the  fictitious  Zach  Phips  hut  all  the 
actual  boys  of  Boston  in  his  famous  Old  North 
Writing  School.  "His  cocked  hat,  his  pow- 
dered wig,  his  long-skirted  coat,  his  volumin- 
ous waistcoat,  and  lastly  his  silver-headed 
Malacca  stick,"  says  the  novelist,  "  were  the 
accessories  of  a  person  not  to  lightly  encount- 
ered save  by  the  innocent  and  pure  in  heart." 
Skirmishes  went  on  among  the  boys  while 
Master  Tileston,  familiarly  called  "Johnny 
Crump,"  was  seemingly  intent  on  copybooks, 
and  Zach,  one  day,  was  caught  whispering. 
So  merciless  was  the  thrashing  given  him  that 
the  boy  whirled  about  on  the  pedagogue  with 
a  "you'll  never  lick  me  again,  old  Johnny 
Crump,  Crumpity  Crump  !  "  and  darted  from 
the  room  never  to  return,  before  the  amazed 
master  could  interfere.  A  large  public  school 
now  stands  on  the  site  of  the  frame  house 
where  the  irascible  master  held  sway. 

Parallel  with  North   Bennet  Street  and  one 
is7 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

block  east  is  Tileston  Street,  named  for  Bos- 
ton's illustrious  school-master  and  interesting 
to  all  lovers  of  the  Agnes  Surriage,  of  the 
novel,  as  being  the  street  in  which  she  lived 
while  making  her  first  home  in  the  town  with 
the  Widow  Ruck.  Frankland,  whose  protege 
the  girl  then  was,  found  this  boarding  place 
for  her  and  there  she  faithfully  applied  herself 
to  the  somewhat  arduous  task  of  taking  on  the 
fine  polish  of  a  lady.  From  the  windows  of 
her  room,  Bynner  tells  us,  lay  outspread  the 
Town  Dock  to  far  off  Frog  Lane,  bristling 
with  the  many  characteristic  features  of  pro- 
vincial Boston  —  the  fine  new  hall  just  given 
by  the  munificent  Faneuil;  the  Town  House  ; 
the  frowning  fortifications  of  Fort  Hill  ;  the 
shabby  little  King's  Chapel,  the  towering 
steeple  of  the  Old  South;  the  royal  colors  flying 
above  Deacon  Shem  Drowne's  Indian  image  on 
the  distant  province  house;  the  last  but  not  least, 
farther  to  the  west,  triple-peaked  Beacon  Hill. 

The  Widow  Ruck,  an  amusing  and  wholly 
fictitious  character,  had,  the  novelist   says,    a 

188 


The  belfry  tower  of  the  Old  North  Church, 
As  it  rose  above  the  graves  on  the  hill, 
Lonely  and  spectral  and  sombre  and  still." 

Longfellow  s  " Paul  Revere 's  Ride 


IN       AN   1)       A  BOUT       BOS  T  O  N 

large  thrifty  garden  which  covered  a  space  now 
occupied  by  several  brick  blocks,  and  an  odd 
corner  of  this  she  was  induced,  by  the  persua- 
sive Frankland,  to  turn  over  to  Agnes.  Here 
the  then  happy  fisher  girl  and  the  debonnair 
Collector  botanized.  The  hitherto  neglected 
corner  was  speedily  filled  with  curious  and 
beautiful  plants,  for  every  time  Frankland 
came  it  was  with  some  choice  plant  or  seed 
fetched  from  abroad  which  Agnes  tended  with 
devotion.  This  pretty  pastime  was  fact  and 
not  fiction,  and  for  this  rare  garden  the  novel- 
ist thinks  Frankland  laid  the  world  under  con- 
tribution. 

Only  a  stone's  throw  farther  on  lies  Salem 
Street  winding  as  in  the  old  days  east  and 
west.  Part  of  this  ancient  street  in  1 708  was 
known  as  Back  Street  from  the  fact  that  it 
described  the  limits  and  sea  margin  of  the 
town.  Fictional  interest  centres  at  once  in 
Christ  Church,  the  dominant  building  not  only 
of  the  street  but  the  entire  North  End.  Erected 
in    1723,    this  church  is  the  oldest  in   Boston 

191 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

standing  on  its  original  ground.  Bynner's 
characters  did  not  attend  it,  but  he  speaks  of 
Frankland's.  keeping  his  chronometer  by  its 
bells  which  tolled  the  curfew  hour.  Mr.  Stimson's 
pretty  heroine  Pirate  Gold,  Mercedes,  some- 
times attended  the  services  in  Christ  Church, 
escorted  by  the  clumsy  Hughson.  Here,  in 
those  anti-Episcopal  days,  "were  scarcely  a 
dozen  worshippers ;  and  you  might  have  a 
square,  dock-like  pew  all  to  yourself,  turn  your 
back  upon  the  minister,  and  gaze  upon  the 
painted  angels  blowing  gilded  trumpets  in  the 
gallery."  A  poet's  rhymes  have  immortalized 
the  steeple  of  Christ  Church  as  all  readers  of 
"Paul  Revere's  Ride  "  know. 

Beside  Christ  Church  in  Salem  Street  stands 
to-day  the  curious  little  house  where  the  child 
Mercedes  (Stimson's  Pirate  Gold)  was  taken 
to  live  when  James  McMurtagh  adopted  her. 
Jamie,  who  was  Scotch,  liked  it  because  it 
might  have  been  a  little  house  in  some  provin- 
cial town  at  home.  Later  in  the  story  Jamie 
sold  this   house  and  removed  to  a  more  fash- 

192 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

ionable    quarter    only  to   return   to  it  in  after 
years,  and  there  the  noble,  unselfish   old  soul 


HOME    OF    THE    M  MURTAGHS — SALEM    STREET 

"Jamie  liked  it  because  it  might  have  been  a  little 
house  in  some  provincial  town  at  home.,r — StimsorCs 
'■'Pirate  Gold." 


in  his  sixtieth  year  was  attacked  by  that 
illness  which  so  nearly  proved  fatal.  How 
the    heart    throbs    in    watching    by    his    bed- 

193 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


side,  where  the  pathetic  old  fellow  "  lay  un- 
conscious of  earthly  things.  For  many  weeks 
his   spirit,  like   a  tired   bird,  hovered  between 

this  world  and  the  next, 
uncertain  where  to 
light."  To  the  infinite 
relief  of  the  reader  it 
lights  on  terra  firma  and 
we  leave  Jamie  happy 
to  live  again  for  his  lost 
Mercedes's  little  Sarah 
in  the  old  house  in  Sa- 
lem Street. 

Turning  north  from 
this  picturesque  dwell- 
ing, we  pass  up  Hull 
Street,  which  is  directly 
opposite  Christ  Church. 
This  quaint  street  leads 
up  a  short  ascent  to 
Copp's  Hill  burying-ground.  Before  reaching 
that  inclosure,  however,  we  pass  on  the  left, 
half-way  up  the  hill,  an  old  gambrel-roof  house, 

194 


THE  HOUSE  IN  HULL  STREET 
WHERE  GAGE  IS  SAID  TO  HAVE 
PLANNED  THE  BATTLE  OF 
BUNKER    HILL 


IE  >< 


1)  . - 
a  - 


C    2  § 


™     —    O 
—      -Z    ° 


a  5= 


u 

•r. 

fs s 

" 

„-5 

^ 

§^ 

r. 

J'^ 

— 

S  ?* 

- 

•a  ^ 

195 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

to  which  —  so  Job  Pray  said  (Cooper's  Lionel 
Lincoln )  ( rage  secretly  retired  to  plan  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill.  Remarkably  well  preserved 
inside  and  out  is  the  house,  unchanged  since  it 
was  built.  It  is  now  occupied  by  a  venerable 
little  Irishman  "bowed  with  his  fourscore  years 
and  ten  "  —  a  well-known  and  unique  character 
in  a  neighbourhood  Italian — who  is  persuaded 
sometimes  to  allow  within  his  gates  the 
stranger  permitted  not  to  conjure  up  the 
shades  of  Cooper's  characters,  but  quaintly 
made  conversant  of  the  fact  that  mine  host, 
now  retired  from  active  business,  is  the  oldest 
living  fish  merchant  on  T  Wharf. 

It  is  but  a  few  steps  on  to  Copp's  Hill  bury- 
ing-ground  where 

Each  in  his  narrow  cell  forever  laid 

The  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep. 

Here,  too,  sleeps  the  gentle  Grace  Osborne, 
who  moves  like  some  spirit  from  another  world 
through  the  pages  of  The  Rebels,  the  hero  of 
which,  Captain  Somerville,  breaking  faith  with 
her,  likewise  broke  her  tender  heart.    Everyone 

197 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

remembers  the  exquisite  letter  of  forgiveness 
and  farewell  she  left  for  him  and  which  was 
fowarded  to  the  King's  Head  Tavern,  Balti- 
more, where  he  was  then  supposed  to  be. 
"  Three  weeks  after  a  young  man  called  upon 
the  sexton  and  requested  the  key  of  Mr.  Os- 
borne's tomb.  With  weak,  irregular  steps  he 
entered  the  house  of  death,  and  raised  the  lid 
of  the  coffin  last  placed  there.  .  .  .  Not  a 
sigfh,  not  a  tear  relieved  the  bursting  ano-uish 
of  his  heart.  His  eye  accidentally  rested  on 
the  inscription: — Grace  Osborne,  aged  19. 
Departed  this  life  May  27th,  1769."  A  month 
later  Captain  Somerville  died  and  was  laid  to 
rest  not  far  from  his  mourned  love,  in  the  south- 
east corner  of  the  cemetery  where  the  tomb  of 
the  Hutchinson  family,  of  which  he  was  a 
member,  still  remains.  The  beautiful  coat-of- 
arms  of  the  aristocratic  family  emblazons  the 
slab  of  sand-stone  which  covers  the  entrance  to 
the  tomb  desecrated  by  an  act  of  vandalism,  for 
the  name  of  Hutchinson  has  been  obliterated 
and  that  of  Thomas  Lewis  cut  in  its  place. 

198 


IN       AND       A  B  O  U  T       BOSTON 


With  broad  and    brilliant    strokes   in  Lionel 
Lincoln  Cooper   paints   for  us  this  famed   hill. 


THE    SPOT    FROM    WHICH    LIONEL    LINCOLN 
WATCHED  THE  BATTLE  OF  BUNKER  HILL 

" — he,  too,  is  for  Copp's,  where  we  can  all  take 
a  lesson  in  arms  by  studying  the  manner  in  which 
Howe  wields  his  battalions." — Cooper's  "Lionel 
Lincoln." 

He  has  described  it  by  moonlight,  when  the 
scene  was  so  weird  and  uncanny  that  Lionel 
refused  to  wander    there  among;  the    graves  ; 

199 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

again  at  night  in  stirring  times  when,  restless 
and  excited,  Lionel  found  himself  issuing  upon 
the  open  space  that  is  tenanted  by  the  dead. 
"  On  this  eminence  the  Eno-lish  o-eneral  had 
caused  a  battery  of  heavy  cannon  to  be  raised, 
and  Lionel,  unwilling  to  encounter  the  chal- 
lenge of  the  sentinels,  inclining  a  little  to  one 
side,  proceeded  to  the  brow  of  the  hill,  and 
seating  himself  on  a  stone,  began  to  muse 
deeply  on  his  own  fortunes  and  the  situation 
of  the  country.  .  .  .  The  stillness  of  midnight 
rested  on  the  scene,  and  when  the  loud  calls  of 
"all's  well"  ascended  from  the  ships  and  batter- 
ies, the  momentary  cry  was  succeeded  by  a  quiet 
as  deep  as  if  the  universe  slumbered  under  this 
assurance  of  safety."  From  this  elevation,  with 
Clinton  and  Burgoyne,  Lionel  watched  through 
a  spy-glass  the  fighting  at  Bunker  Hill  —  told 
by  the  novelist  in  so  graphic  and  pictorial  a  man- 
ner that  Bancroft,  the  historian,  says  it  is  the 
finest  description  of  the  battle  we  have. 

In  these    days  there    was  an    unobstructed 
view  of  Charlestown,  and  the  whole  scene  of 


H  z 

S  P 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOS  T  O  N 

the  bloody  struggle  lay  before  these  men,  who, 
in  the  beginning,  thought  it  a  glorious  spectacle 
but  quickly  began  to  realize  that  the  incessant 
roll  of  the  American  musketry  was  something 
to  be  respected,  nay  feared  ;  and  when,  as  the 
conflict  proceeded  the  result  was  known,  the 
bewildered  group  on  Copps  gazed  in  each 
others'  faces  with  undisguised  amazement,  and 
then  made  a  mad  rush  down  the  hill  to  the 
shore  and  a  boat  which  they  ordered  to  quickly 
convey  them  to  the  scenes  of  operations.  To 
appreciate  the  sensation  of  Major  Lincoln  and 
his  brother  officers  of  that  momentous  day  cne 
must  turn  to  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Lionel  Lin- 
coln which  alone  would  have  given  Cooper  fame. 
A  stone's  throw  from  Copp's  Hill,  at  the 
corner  of  Prince  and  Margaret  Streets,  stands 
the  home  of  Master  John  Tileston  (Bynner's 
Zachary  Phips).  Time  has  laid  its  destruc- 
tive hand  on  the  old  house,  which,  neverthe- 
less, holds  its  own  as  one  of  the  few  remaining 
examples  of  the  simple  architecture  of  pre- 
Revolutionary  days. 

203 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

III.  IN  AND  AROUND  DOCK 
SQUARE 

THREADING  ourwaynow  down  Prince 
and  west  through  Salem  Street,  we 
cross  Blackstone  Street,  named  for 
the  man  who  founded  Boston.  This  ec- 
centric individual  is  made  by  Hawthorne 
to  play  the  part  of  the  priest  in  his  tale 
The  May-pole  of  Merry  Mount.  At  least 
in  the  story  he  is  accused  of  so  doing  by 
the  austere  Endicott,  who,  calling  him  "  priest 
of  Baal,"  demands  that  he  throw  off  the  dis- 
guise he  has  assumed  as  one  of  the  large  party 
of  merrymakers,  who  were  assisting  in  the 
nuptials  of  the  Lord  and  Lady  of  the  May. 
Hawthorne  is  characteristically  vague  in  the 
matter.  Indeed,  in  a  note  appended  to  the 
tale  he  says :  "  The  Rev.  Mr.  Blackstone, 
though  an  eccentric,  is  not  known  to  have  been 
an  immoral  man.  We  rather  doubt  his  iden- 
tity with  the  priest  of  Merry  Mount." 

Northwestward  from  here  at  the  corner  of 
Chambers   Street   and   Green   Lane    was    the 

204 


IN       AND       ABOUT       B  O  S    I    0  N 

"Wild  Goose  Tavern"  described  in  Robert 
W.  Chambers's  colonial  novel  Cardigan.  The 
tavern  —  an  ancient,  discoloured,  rambling 
structure,  with  a  weather-vane  atop,  and  a  long- 
pillared  porch  in  front,  from  which  hung  a  bush 
of  sea-weed,  and  a  red  sign-board  depicting  a 
creature  which  doubtless  was  intended  for  a 
wild  goose"  —  was  not,  the  author  says,  in  an 
aristocratic  neighbourhood.  "Warehouses,  ship- 
chandlers,  rope-walks,  and  scrap-iron  shops 
lined  the  streets,  interspersed  with  vacant,  bar- 
ren plots  of  ground,  rarely  surrounded  by 
wooden  fences.  .  .  .  Northward  across  the 
misty  water  the  roof  and  steeples  of  Charles- 
town  reddened  in  the  sun  ;  to  the  west  the 
cannon  on  Copps  Hill  glittered,  pointing  sea- 
ward over  the  Northwest  Water  Mill.  From 
somewhere  in  the  city  came  the  beating  of 
drums  and  the  faint  squealing  of  fifes  ;  the  lion 
banner  of  England  flapped  from  Beacon  Hill  ; 
white  tents  crowned  the  summit  of  Valley 
Acre  ;  the  ashes  of  the  Beacon  smoked."  This 
was  the  city  as  first  seen  by  Cardigan. 

205 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


Returning  now  to  Blackstone  Street  and 
crossing  it,  we  continue  a  few  steps  in  Hanover 
Street,  when  a  sharp  turn  to  the  left  brings  us 

into  Marshall  Street 
and  up  to  the  Boston 
Stone,  where,  on  the 
night  of  the  14th  of 
August,  1765,  Henry 
Osborne  lingered  to 
watch  the  ominous 
bon-fire  on  Fort  Hill 
so  vividly  described 
in  the  opening  chap- 
ter of  The  Rebels. 
Though  this  stone 
bears  the  date  of 
1  737    and     has    a 

"He  leaned  a  moment  on  Un-  Un'^UQ      history,     it      is 

Jon  (Boston) .Stone    listening   to  passe(}     unnoticed      by 

the  distant  tumult.   — Lydia  M,  r  J 

Child- s  -The   Rebels."  the     majority     Qf     per. 

sons  who  frequent  the  neighbourhood. 

From  here  we  pass  down  Union  Street  or 
take  a   short   cut  to   North    Street    by  Creek 

206 


•'  z 


C  -43 


207 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Lane  and  Scottow's  Alley,  emerging-  upon 
Faneuil  Hall,  in  Dock  Square. 

Frankland,  the  Collector  (Bynner's  Agnes 
Surrzage),  attended  the  great  meeting  there 
when  Master  John  Lovell  pronounced  the  fu- 
neral oration  upon  the  widely  mourned  Peter 
Faneuil,  and  the  novelist  gives  us  an  amusing 
account  of  a  conversation  after  the  meeting, 
between  the  Collector  and  Master  Pel  ham, 
who,  jealous  of  the  honour  conferred  on  his 
brother  pedagogue,  consoled  himself  by  tart 
criticism  of  the  oration.  In  The  Rebels  is 
also  pictured  a  Faneuil  Hall  meeting,  this  an 
exciting  one  called  by  Samuel  Adams  to  pro- 
test against  the  ruined  mansion  of  Hutchin- 
son and  petition  the  Legislature  to  repair  it  at 
the  expense  of  the  State. 

On  the  south  side  of  Faneuil  Hall,  partially 
hidden  in  old  Corn  Court,  is  standing  the  his- 
toric Hancock  Tavern  which  figures  in  Byn- 
ner's Zachary  Phips.  The  stable  yard  where 
Zach  loved  to  mingle  with  the  crowd  of  teams- 
ters, hostlers  and  hangers-on,  is  no  more,  but 

209 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


the  house  itself  has  undergone  few  changes 
and  its  bar  would  seem  to  be  doing  at  the 
present  time'  as  flourishing  a  business  as  in  the 
days  of  Zach  and  again  of  Talleyrand,  who  is 

said  to  have  sojourned 
there  when  in  Boston  in 
1795.  The  sign  of  the 
tavern  bearing  the 
weather-stained  features 
of  Governor  Hancock 
has  been  removed  from 
the  door  and  placed  in 
a  room  teemino"  with 
historic  but,  alas!  no  lit- 
erary interest. 

Such  interest,  how- 
ever, centres  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood    of    Dock 

yard  of  the  old  Brasier  Inn." —    q  1    ■    1^        •  .  1 

Bynner's  "Zachary  Phips"  oqiiare,       WUlcn        IS       tne 

scene  of  much  of  Lionel  Lincoln.  When  the 
young  British  major  frequented  it,  its  centre  was 
a  swineine  bridge  thrown  across  an  inlet  from 
the  harbour  and  extending  a  short  distance  into 

210 


"Wandering  into  the  stable- 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

the  area,  forming' a  shallow  dock.  The  square 
was  composed  of  low,  gloomy  buildings,  in  one 
of  which,  a  warehouse  standing  within  the 
memory  of  many  persons,  the  mysterious 
Ralph  lived  with  Abigail  and  Job  Pray. 

A  short  walk  up  through  here  across  Adams 
Square  and  we  come  upon  Cornhill,  as  quaint 
and  interesting  as  its  London  prototype. 
The  character  of  the  street  has  changed  some- 
what  since  Trowbridge's  A  far  tin  Af err  hale,  the 
hero  of  the  novel  of  that  name,  sought  out 
a  publisher  there  for  his  precious  manuscript, 
The  Beggar  of  Bagdad,  but  if  publishers  have 
largely  abandoned  it  to  other  trades,  booksellers 
still  find  it  a  lucrative  field,  and  on  either  side 
of  its  winding  street  are  fascinating  antiquar- 
ian shops.  Martin  Merrivale  hopefully  seek- 
ing out  a  publisher  lives  through  sensations 
still  vivid  in  the  experience  of  his  creator,  John 
T.  Trowbridee,  when,  as  a  vouna-  man,  he  went 
to  New  York  to  seek  his  literary  fortunes 

It  is  more  than  probable  that  to  Cornhill 
also  came  the  brave-hearted  old  Master  Byles 

213 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Gridley  (Holmes's  The  Guardian  Angel), 
bringing  his  protege,  the  embryo  poet,  Gifted 
Hopkins,  to  call  on  a  publisher  who  might  be 
persuaded  to  purchase  his  MS.,  a  collection 
of  poems  entitled  "  Blossoms  of  the  Soul."  In 
referring  to  this  fictitious  young  poet  Holmes 
says  :  "  Perhaps  I  have  been  too  hard  with 
Gifted  Hopkins  and  the  tribe  of  rhymesters  to 
which  he  belongs.  I  ought  not  to  forget  that 
I,  too,  introduced  myself  to  the  reading  world 
in  a  thin  volume  of  verses,  many  of  which  had 
better  not  have  been  written,  and  would  not 
be  reprinted  now,  but  for  the  fact  that  they 
have  established  a  right  to  a  place  among  my 
poems  in  virtue  of  long  occupancy.  Besides, 
although  the  writing-  of  verses  is  often  a  mark 
of  mental  weakness,  I  cannot  forget  that 
Joseph  Story  and  George  Bancroft  each  pub- 
lished his  little  book  of  rhymes,  and  that  John 
Ouincy  Adams  had  left  many  poems  on  record, 
the  writing  of  which  did  not  interfere  with  the 
vast  and  important  labors  of  his  illustrious 
career." 

214 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Across  from  Cornhill,  on  the  space  now  oc- 
cupied by  Codmen's  Buildings,  once  stood 
Earl's  Coffee-house,  from  which  Zach  (Bynner's 
Zachary  Phips)  started  out  to  New  York  on 
the  fast  mail  coach,  the  Flying  Cloud.  At  the 
head  of  Cornhill,  in  the  former  residence  of 
one  John  Wendell,  was  the  Royal  Custom 
House  at  the  time  Frankland  (Bynner's  Agnes 
Surriage)  was  Collector.  Near  by  was  the 
studio  of  John  Smybert,  who,  by  Frankland's 
order,  painted  the  portrait  of  Agnes.  Some- 
times at  her  sittings,  the  novelist  says,  she  ran 
across  the  little  Jack  Copley  whom  Smybert 
was  teaching,  and  of  whom  he  truly  prophesied 
when  he  said  :  "  He  hae  the  richt  stuff  in  him. 
.  .  .  he's  bound  to  q-o  far  ahead  o'  his  old  mais- 
ter  ane  o'  thae  days."  Through  this  old  Scot's 
estate  Brattle  Street  in  after  times  burst  forth 
into  Scollay  Square. 

Just  south  of  here  in  Queen  Street,  now 
Court,  lived  the  Osbornes  [The  Rebels)  where 
Governor  Hutchinson  and  his  family  took 
refuse  at  the  time  his  mansion  was  attacked. 

215 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

In  Queen  Street,  says  the  author  of  Cardigan, 
was  the  elegant  mansion  of  Mrs.  Hamilton 
who  plays  a  leading  part  in  the  book.  Here 
also  was  the  Court-house  and  prison  where 
Cardigan  and  Jack  Mount  were  confined. 
"  From  the  29th  of  October  until  the  15th  day 
of  December  chained  ankle  to  ankle,  wrist  to 
wrist,  and  wearing  a  steel  collar  from  which 
chains  huno-  and  were  riveted  to  the  rin^s  on 
my  legs,  I  lay  in  that  vile  iron  cage  known  as 
the  '  Pirates'  Chapel '  in  company  with  Mount 
and  eight  sullen,  cursing  ruffians." 

Identified  with  this  street  are  the  tragic  ficr- 
ures  of  Hawthorne's  Scarlet  Letter  of  which 
Holmes  wrote  : 

/  snatch  the  book,  along  whose  burning  leaves 
His  scarlet  web  our  wild  romancer  weaves. 

The  jail  where  Hester  Prynne  was  confined 
was  the  Old  Prison  in  Prison  Lane,  as  it  was 
called  before  it  became  Queen  and  later  Court 
Street.  This  is  not  the  jail  described  in  Car- 
digan, but  a  structure  of  a  much  earlier  date. 
"  Some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  after  the  settle- 

216 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

ment  of  the  town  {The  Scarlet  Letter)  the 
wooden  jail  was  already  marked  with  weather- 
stains  and  other  indications  of  age,  which  gave 
a  yet  darker  aspect  to  its  beetle-browed  and 
gloomy  front.  The  rust  on  the  ponderous 
iron-work  of  its  oaken  door  looked  more  an- 
tique than  anything  else  in  the  New  World. 
Like  all  that  pertains  to  crime,  it  seemed  never 
to  have  known  a  youthful  era.  Before  this 
ugly  edifice,  and  between  it  and  the  wheel- 
track  of  the  street,  was  a  grass-plot,  much 
over-grown  with  burdock,  pigweed,  apple-peru, 
and  such  unsightly  vegetation,  which  evidently 
found  something  congenial  in  the  soil  that  had 
so  early  borne  the  black  flower  of  civilized 
society,  a  prison.  But,  on  one  side  of  the  por- 
tal, and  rooted  almost  at  the  threshold,  was  a 
wild-rose  bush,  covered,  in  this  month  of  June, 
with  its  delicate  orems,  which  mi^ht  be  imagined 
to  offer  their  fragrance  and  fragile  beauty  to 
the  prisoner  as  he  went  in,  and  to  the  con- 
demned criminal  as  he  came  forth  to  his  doom 
in  token  that  the  deep  heart  of  Nature  could 

217 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

pity  and  be  kind  to  him."  This  jail  as  well  as 
"  Pirates'  Chapel "  (Chamber's  Cardigan) 
stood  on  the  site  of  the  present  old  Court 
House  in  Court  Street. 

The  immediate  neighbourhood  was  the  mar- 
ket place  in  which  Hester  Prynne  (The  Scarlet 
Letter)  was  forced  to  exhibit  herself  with  her 
baby  in  her  arms  and  the  ignominious  letter 
on  her  breast,  and  at  the  western  extremity  of 
the  market  place  was  the  scaffold,  "  a  penal 
machine  which  now  for  two  or  three  genera- 
tions past,  has  been  merely  historical  and  tra- 
ditional among  us,  but  was  held,  in  the  old 
time,  to  be  as  effectual  an  agent,  in  the  promo- 
tion of  good  citizenship,  as  ever  was  the  guil- 
lotine among  the  terrorists  of  France.  .  .  .Hes- 
ter's sentence  bore  that  she  should  stand  a  cer- 
tain time  upon  the  platform,  but  without  under- 
going the  grip  about  the  neck  and  confinement 
of  the  head,  the  proneness  to  which  was  the  most 
devilish  characteristic  of  this  ugly  engine." 

The  scaffold  stood  nearly  beneath  the  eaves 
of  Boston's  earliest  church  situated  where  now 

2lS 


IN       AND       A  B  O  U  T       Ji  O  S  T  O  N 

stands  the  Rogers  building.  Historically  this 
was  the  first  church  of  Boston  built  originally 
on  ground  at  the  head  of  what  is  now  State 
Street,  a  site  occupied  by  Brazer's  Building, 
but  in  1640,  just  before  the  opening-  of  7V/e 
Scarlet  Letter  romance,  it  was  removed  to  the 
locality  Hawthorne  describes.  There  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Dimmesdale  preached  the  Election  Ser- 
mon, and  vivid  in  every  mind  must  be  his  sen- 
sational disclosure  and  the  events  preceding 
and  following  it.  That  The  Scarlet  Letter 
is  founded  on  fact  is  well  known,  but  it  has 
been  stoutly  denied  that  Hawthorne  drew  his 
erring  minister  from  the  Rev.  Thomas  Cob- 
bett,  of  Lynn,  who,  in  1649,  tne  year  named, 
actually  delivered  the  Election  Sermon. 

In  this  locality  stood  the  town  pump  in 
Court  Street,  which,  aided  by  Hawthorne's 
Muse,  thus  invoked  the  passer-by  :  "  Like  a 
dram-seller  on  the  Mall  at  muster-day  I  cry 
aloud  to  all  and  sundry,  in  my  plainest  accents 
and  at  the  very  tip-top  of  my  voice  :  '  Here  it  is, 
gentlemen  !   Here  is  the  good  liquor  !  Walk  up, 

219 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

walk  up,  gentlemen,  walk  up,  walk  up.  Here  is 
the  superior  stuff ;  here  is  the  unadulterated 
ale  of  Father  Adam — better  than  Cognac,  Hol- 
lands, Jamaica,  strong  beer,  or  wine  of  any 
price  ;  here  it  is  by  the  hogshead  or  single 
glass,  and  not  a  cent  to  pay !  Walk  up,  gen- 
tlemen, walk  up,  and  help  yourselves  ! ' ' 

In  modern  Court  Street  was  the  office  of 
Mr.  David  Willis  (Aldrich's  GoliatJi)  and  pre- 
sumably of  another  lawyer  in  fiction,  Tom 
Harbinger  (Bates's  Love  in  a  Cloud)  who  was 
never  known  to  stir  from  his  office  without  his 
bag  —  "a  lawyer's  green  bag  is  in  Boston  as 
much  a  part  of  his  dress  as  his  coat  is." 

IV.  STATE  STREET  AND  THE  KING'S 
CHAPEL  NEIGHBOURHOOD 

WE    now    reach    the    head     of     State 
Street  where  stands,  as  in  the  old 
days,      the      Town     House,     now 
known  as  the  Old  State  House.      In  one  of  its 
state  rooms  occurred  the  celebration  in  honour 
of  the  Louisburgr  heroes  to  which  reference  has 


THE    OLD    STATE    HOUSE 

"  Through  days  of  sorrow  and  of  mirth, 
Through  days  of  death  and  days  of  birth, 
Through  every  swift  vicissitude 
Of  changeful  time,  unchanged  it  has  stood." 

— Longfellow, 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

been  made  of  the  description  of  this  event  in 
the  pages  of  Agues  Surriage.  Among  the 
many  pictures  adorning  the  rooms  of  this  his- 
toric building,  now  preserved  as  a  museum,  two 
have  distinct  literary  value  —  one,  the  full- 
length  portrait  of  that  noted  woman  and  novel- 
ist, Mrs. 'Harrison  Gray  Otis;  the  other  a  re- 
production of  the  portrait  of  Holmes's  cele- 
brated "  Dorothy  O."  his 

Grandmother  s  mother  :  her  age,  I  guess 
Thirteen  summers,  or  something  less; 
Girlish  bust,    tit  womanly  air; 
Smooth,  square  forehead  with  uprollcd  hair, 
Lips  that  lover  has  never  kissed; 
Taper  fingers  and  slender  wrist; 
Hanging  sleeves  of  stiff  brocade; 
So  they  painted  the  little  maid. 

Standing  beneath  the  lion  and  the  unicorn 
of  the  old  State  House  we  find  Jamie  McMur- 
tagh  (Stimson's  Pirate  Gold)  on  the  twenty- 
seventh  day  of  May,  eighteen  fifty-four, 
watching  a  scene  memorable  in  the  history  of 
Boston  and  thus  graphically  pictured  for  us 
by    the    novelist  :  "  Through     historic    State 

223 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Street,  cleared  now  as  for  a  triumph,  marched 
a  company  of  Federal  troops.  Behind  them, 
in  a  hollow  square,  followed  a  body  of  rough- 
appearing  men,  each  with  a  short  Roman 
sword  and  a  revolver  ;  and  in  the  open  centre, 
alone  and  handcuffed,  one  trembling  negro. 
The  fife  had  stopped,  and  they  marched  now 
in  a  hushed  silence  to  the  tap  of  a  solitary 
drum ;  and  behind  came  the  naval  marines 
with  cannon.  The  street  was  hung  across 
with  flags,  union  down  or  draped  in  black,  but 
the  crowd  was  still.  And  all  along  the  street, 
as  far  down  as  the  wharf,  where  the  free  sea 
shone  blue  in  the  May  sunshine,  stood,  on 
either  side,  a  close  rank  of  Massachusetts 
militia,  with  bayonets  fixed,  four  thousand 
strong,  restraining,  behind,  the  fifty  thousand 
men  who  muttered  angrily,  but  stood  still. 
Thus  much  it  took  to  hold  the  old  Bay  State 
down  to  the  Union  in  1854,  and  carry  one 
slave  from  it  to  bondage.  Down  the  old 
street  it  was  South  Carolina  that  walked  that 
day  beneath  the  national  flag,  and  Massachu- 

224 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

setts  that  did  homage,  hiding  her  time  until 
her  sister  State  should  turn  her  arms  upon  the 
emblem." 

A  familiar  tramping  ground  was  this  busy 
commercial  thoroughfare  to  Jamie,  who  always 
walked  "  twice  daily  up  the  street  to  the  Old 
Colony  Bank,  bearing  in  a  rusty  leathern  wal- 
let anything,  from  nothing  to  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars,  the  daily  notes  and  discounts  of 
James  Bowdoin's  Sons."  This  bank,  under 
the  disguise  of  the  Old  Colony,  is  the  Boston 
National  Bank,  which,  since  1803,  has  been 
doing  business  at  Number  50  State  Street. 
The  imaginary  Mr.  James  Bowdoin  was  one  of 
the  directors,  as  was  in  reality  his  prototype, 
Mr.  Josiah  Bradlee,  and  it  will  be  remembered 
that  Jamie  took,  a  clerkship  there  when  his  old 
firm  ceased  to  do  business  in  India  Wharf. 
Jamie,  a  most  Dickensy  character,  owes  his 
being  to  the  brain  of  Mr.  Stimson,  but  it  was 
said  that  he  is  suggestive  now  and  then  of  a 
former  messenger  of  a  bank  named  Brecken- 
ridge,  who,  early  in  the  century,  began  life  as 

225 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

an  "  inside  man  " — as  the  Boston  phrase  is — 
in  the  Bradlee  family.     The  pirate  gold  from 


"Jamie  always  walked  twice  daily  up  State  Street  to  the  Old 
Colony  Bank,  bearing  in  a  rusty  leathern  wallet  anything,  from 
nothing  to  a  hundred  thousand  dollars,  the  daily  notes  and  discounts 
of  James  Bowdoin's  Sons." — Siimsotis  "Pirate  Gold." 

which  Mr.  Stimson's  story  gets  its  title,  and 
which  was  responsible  for  all  the  joy  and  misery 
in  J  amie's  life,  really  lay,  as  described,  in  its  little 

226 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

mouldy  bag  "  for  nearly  thirty  years,  high  on  a 
shelf,  in  an  old  chest,  behind  three  tiers  of 
tins  of  papers,  in  the  deepest  corner  of  the 
vault  of  the  bank.  It  was  never  merged  in 
other  funds,  nor  converted,  nor  put  at  interest. 
.  .  .  but  carried,  in  specie,  in  its  original  pack- 
age ;  four  hundred  and  twenty-three  American 
eagles  and  fifteen  hundred  and  fifty-six  Span- 
ish doubloons.      Deposited  by de  Soto, 

June  twenty-fourth,  eighteen  hundred  and 
twenty-nine;  for  the  benefit  of  whom  it  may 
concern?  And  it  very  much  concerned  Jamie, 
whom  to  know  is  to  sorrow  for  and  love. 

The  State  Street  of  to-day  is  graphically  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Edward  Bellamy  in  Looking 
Backzvard.  "  Toward  three  o'clock,"  the  hero 
says,  "  I  stood  on  State  Street,  staring,  as  if  I 
had  never  seen  them  before,  at  the  banks  and 
brokers'  offices,  and  other  financial  institutions, 
of  which  there  had  been  in  the  State  Street  of 
my  vision  no  vestige.  Business  men,  confi- 
dential clerks,  and  errand  boys  were  thronging 
in   and   out  of  the  banks,  for  it  wanted  but  a 

227 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

few  minutes  of  the  closing  hour.  Opposite 
me  was  the  bank  where  I  did  business,  and 
presently  I  crossed  the  street,  and  going  in 
with  the  crowd,  stood  in  a  recess  of  the  way- 
looking  on  at  the  army  of  clerks  handling 
money,  and  the  cues  of  depositors  at  the  teller's 
windows.  An  old  gentleman  whom  I  knew,  a 
director  of  the  bank,  stopped  a  moment.  '  In- 
teresting sight,  isn't  it,  Mr.  West?'  he  said. 
1  Wonderful  piece  of  mechanism  ;  I  find  it  so 
myself.  .  .  .  It's  a  poem,  sir,  a  poem,  that's 
what  I  call  it.  Did  you  ever  think  that  the 
bank  is  the  heart  of  the  business  system  ? 
From  it  and  to  it,  in  endless  flux  and  reflux, 
the  life  blood  goes.  It  is  flowing  in  now.  It 
will  flow  out  again  in  the  morning  ;'  and  pleased 
with  his  little  conceit,  the  old  man  passed  on 
smiling.  .  .  .  Alas  for  the  poor  old  bank  direc- 
tor with  his  poem !  He  had  mistaken  the 
throbbing  of  an  abscess  for  the  beating  of  the 
heart." 

Retracing    our    steps    back    again    through 
Court  Street  we  come  to  Tremont  Row  where 


IN      AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

the  hero  of  Miss  Phelps's  A  Singular  Life 
had  his  unpleasant  quarter  of  an  hour  with  the 
maudlin  Job  Slip.  Bayard,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  driving  to  the  station  with  Helen 
Carruth  when  he  came  upon  the  delinquent. 
"  Struggling  in  the  iron  grip  of  two  policemen 
of  assorted  sizes,  the  form  and  tongue  of  Job 
Slip  were  forcibly  ornamenting  Tremont  Row." 
Rescued  by  his  minister,  "Job,  who  was  not 
too  far  gone  to  recognize  his  preserver,  now 
threw  his  arms  affectionately  around  Bayard's 
recoiling  neck  and  became  unendurably  maud- 
lin. In  a  voice  audible  the  width  of  the  street, 
and  with  streaming  tears  and  loathsome  bless- 
ings,  he  identified  Bayard  as  his  dearest,  best, 
nearest,  and  most  intimate  of  friends." 

Just  beyond  here  in  Tremont  Street  is  the 
Museum,  a  theatre  dear  to  the  hearts  of  the 
Bostonese,  where  Edward  Everett  Hale's  de- 
lightful characters  go  frequently  to  see  the 
well-remembered  William  Warren.  In  A 
Modern  Instance  Mr.  Howells  describes  the 
place  as  old  Bostonians  remember  it  :     tl  They 

229 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

passed  in  through  the  long  colonnaded  vesti- 
bule, with  its  paintings  and  plaster  casts,  and 
rows  of  birds  and  animals  in  glass  cases  on 
either  side,  and  Marcia  gave  scarcely  a  glance 
at  any  of  those  objects,  endeared  by  associa- 
tion, if  not  by  intrinsic  beauty,  to  the  Boston 
playgoer.  Gulliver,  with  the  Liliputians 
swarming  upon  him ;  the  painty-necked  os- 
triches and  pelicans  ;  the  mummied  mermaid 
under  a  glass  bell  ;  the  governor's  portraits ; 
the  stuffed  elephant ;  Washington  crossing  the 
Delaware  ;  Cleopatra  applying  the  asp  ;  Sir 
William  Pepperel  at  full  length,  on  canvas,  and 
the  pagan  months  and  seasons  in  plaster,  .  ,  . 
were  dim  phantasmagoria  amid  which  she  and 
Bartley  moved  scarcely  more  than  real." 

Adjoining  the  Museum  is  the  venerated 
burying-ground  and 

—  Chapel,  last  of  sublunary  things 

That  shocks  our  echoes  with  the  name  of  Kings. 

Hawthorne  tells  us  that  Dimmesdale  and 
Roger  Chillingworth  {The  Scarlet  Letter) 
dwelt  in  a  house  covering  pretty  nearly  the 

230 


231 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

site  on  which  King's  Chapel  has  since  been 
built.  "It  had  the  graveyard,"  says  the  ro- 
mancer, "  on  one  side,  and  so  well  adapted  to 
call  up  serious  reflections,  suited  to  their  re- 
spective employments,  in  both  minister  and 
the  man  of  physic." 

Rich  in  fictional  association  is  this  burying- 
ground  where,  in  their  last  sleep  lie  Dimmes- 
dale  and  Hester  Prynne.  Many  years  after 
Dimmesdale  died  "a  new  arave  was  delved 
near  an  old  and  sunken  one,  in  that  burial- 
ground  beside  which  King's  Chapel  has  since 
been  built.  It  was  near  that  old  and  sunken 
grave,  yet  with  a  space  between,  as  if  the  dust 
of  the  two  sleepers  had  no  right  to  mingle. 
Yet  one  tombstone  served  for  both.  All 
around,  there  were  monuments  carved  with 
armorial  bearings  ;  and  on  this  simple  slab  of 
slate  there  appeared  the  semblance  of  an  en- 
graved escutcheon.  It  bore  a  device,  a  herald's 
wording  of  which  might  serve  for  a  motto  and 
brief  description  of  our  now  concluded  legend  ; 
so  sombre  is  it,  and  relieved  only  by  one  ever- 

233 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

glowing   point    of    light    gloomier    than     the 
shadow  :  — 

"  'On  a  field,  sable,  the  letter  A,  gules'  " 

To  curious  investigators  are  pointed  out 
several  graves  which  bear  a  slight  resemblance 
to  the  one  thus  described,  on  which  in  Haw- 
thorne's day,  he  asserts,  was  plainly  to  be  seen 
the  letter  A,  visible  now  on  no  tombstone 
save  only  as  it  takes  form  in  the  necromancy 
of  the  imagination. 

Here,  too,  lie  the  Shirleys  who  figure  in  the 
pages  of  Agues  Surriage  and  Mrs.  Lechmere, 
Ralph,  Job  and  Abigail  Pray  of  Lionel  Lin- 
coln. The  tomb  of  the  Shirleys  —  real  per- 
sonages in  fiction — remains,  but  it  is  impossible 
to  designate  the  spot  where  the  proud  families 
of  Lechmere  and  Lincoln  were  wont  to  inter 
their  dead.  The  slate,  Cooper  says,  has  long 
since  mouldered  from  the  wall ;  the  sod  has 
covered  the  stone. 

King's  Chapel,  venerated  by  present  day 
Bostonians,  vies  with  the  old  burying-ground 
in  fictional  interest.      Here,  with  his  relatives 

234 


us 


£  3 

u  - 

« -^ 
-   5 

M     M 

.S  5S 

a  <, 

v    I 
o  .1 


235 


IN       AND       A  B  C)  U  T       B  0  S  T  O  N 

and  brother  officers,  Major  Lincoln  (Cooper's 
Lionel  Lincoln)  worshipped  ;  so,  too,  did  the 
Bowdoins,  Jamie  and  Mercedes  {Pirate  Gold)  ; 
Frankland,  Agnes  and  the  Shirleys  {Agnes 
Surriage),  and  Olive  Chancellor  (Henry 
James's  The  Bostonians).  Lionel  and  Cecil 
were  married  there  during  the  Revolution  and 
a  glance  into  the  interior  of  the  church  shows 
the  same  laboured  columns  with  their  slender 
shafts  admired  by  Lionel  and  the  same  chancel 
rails  on  which  Cecil  threw  her  mantle  before 
accompanying  him  to  the  foot  of  the  altar. 
"  With  some  eclat,"  St.  Clair  and  Mercedes 
{Pirate  Gold)  were  likewise  married  there. 

The  mind  busying  itself  with  these  imagin- 
ary festivities  sees  them  fade  away,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  two  funeral  processions,  which  rise 
from  the  pages  of  fiction  and  flit  phantom-like 
down  the  aisles.  The  first  is  that  of  Mrs. 
Shirley,  the  Governor's  lady  {Agnes  Surriage), 
which  peoples  the  church  to  the  limit  of  the 
galleries  with  her  mourners  —  "the  Honour- 
able his  Majesty's  Council  and  the  House  of 

237 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Representatives  and  avast  Number  of  the  prin- 
cipal Gentry  of  both  Sexes  of  this  and  the 
Neiorhbourino-  Towns."  This  distinguished 
gathering  melts  away  and  a  smaller  one  files  in 
following  the  casket  of  Mrs.  Lechmere  {Lionel 
Lincoln)  whose  funeral  train  "  though  respect- 
able was  far  from  extending  to  that  display  of 
solemn  countenances  which  Boston,  in  its  peace 
and  pride,  would  not  have  failed  to  exhibit  on 
any  similar  occasion."  On  the  south  side  of 
the  wall  of  the  Chapel  is  a  mural  tablet  to 
Frances  Shirley,  the  Governor's  lady  who  lived 
in  fact  as  well  as  fancy. 

In  The  Bostonians  Henry  James  asserts  that 
to  the  intense  Olive  Chancellor,  evening  ser- 
vice  at  King's  Chapel  was  only  one  degree 
more  solemn  than  going  to  the  theatre.  Anna 
Farquhar,  the  author  of  Her  Boston  Experi- 
ences, humourously  chronicles  a  woman  suffra- 
gist meetingr  here  which  the  heroine  out  of 
curiosity  attended  with  Aunt  Drusilla.  But  a 
true  spirit  of  reverence  for  "  the  quaint  church 
with   its  high-backed  box  pews  cushioned   in 

238 


sS 


■5^ 


239 


IN      AND      ABOUT      B  O  S  T  O  N 

red  stuff,  its  old-fashioned  English  gallery  and 
high  pulpit  reached  by  winding  stairs,"  took 
her  there  many  a  Sunday  afternoon  to  vesper 
service. 

Shadowed  by  this  ancient  church  and  bury- 
ing-ground,  in  busy  School  Street,  in  front  of 
the  City  Hall,  stands  the  statue  of  Benjamin 
Franklin,  in  alluding  to  which  Dr.  Hale  in  My 
Double  and  How  He  Undid  Me  says  :  "Rich- 
ard Greenough  once  told  me  that  in  studying 
for  the  statue  of  Franklin  he  found  that  the 
left  side  of  the  great  man's  face  was  philosophic 
and  reflective,  and  the  right  side  funny  and 
smiling.  If  you  go  and  look  at  the  bronze 
statue  you  will  find  he  has  repeated  this  ob- 
servation there  for  posterity.  The  eastern 
profile  is  the  portrait  of  the  statesman  Frank- 
lin, the  western  of  poor  Richard." 

Across  the  street  is  the  Parker  House  or 
"  Parker's"  as  it  is  familiarly  known  where  the 
"  Saturday  Club  gathered  about  the  long  table 
(Holmes's  A  Mortal  Antipathy)  such  a  rep- 
resentation of  all  that  was  best  in  American 

241 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

literature  as  had  never  been  collected  within 
so  small  a  compass.      Most  of  the  Americans 


greenough's  statue  of  benjamin  franklin — 
city  hall 

"  —  the  left  side  of  the  great  man's  face  was 
philosophic  and  reflective,  and  the  right  side  funny 
and  smiling." — E.  E.  Hales  "Afy  Double  ami  How 
He  Undid  Me y 

whom  educated  foreigners  cared  to  see  —  leav- 
ing   out    of    consideration   official   dignitaries, 

242 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

whose  temporary  importance  makes  them  ob- 
jects of  curiosity —  were  seated  at  that  board.'' 


V        i^^BL— 

a|B*--  -• 

t     *  ■  wtrv^^st  *■ 

''■■■Li" 

A/^'te                  ^«i 

v'ffll^H 

"  I  never  can  go  into  that  famous  '  Corner  Book- 
store '  and  look  over  the  new  books  .  .  .  without 
seeing  half  a  dozen  which  I  want  to  read,  or  at  least 
to  know  something  about." — Holmes's  "Over  the 
Teacups." 

Howells  makes  frequent  allusions  to  this  hotel 
in  his  Boston  novels,  particularly  in  April 
Hopes  and  here  Craighead  {Truth  Dexter)  dis- 

243 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

patched  a  significant  message  over  the  wires 
to  Truth  in  Alabama. 

Just  below  this  house  at  the  northeast  cor- 
ner of  School  and  Washington  Streets  stands 
a  quaint  little  building,  erected  in  171 2,  where, 
commercially  speaking,  much  of  the  Boston 
fiction  has  had  its  be^inninp-s.  This  is  the  old 
Corner  Bookstore,  fifty  years  ago  "a  nervous 
centre  of  the  growing  literary  system,  where," 
says  a  contemporary  writer,  "  Mr.  Fields  played 
destiny  to  the  association  of  authors  and 
launched  the  second  volume  of  the  Atlantic, 
the  first  that  bore  his  imprint."  Perhaps  it  is 
not  generally  remembered  that  this  magazine 
owes  its  name  to  Holmes.  A  favourite  haunt 
was  this  bookstore  of  the  genial  Autocrat,  who 
in  alludinor  to  it  once  wrote  :  "  I  never  can 
go  into  that  famous  '  Corner  Bookstore  '  and 
look  over  the  new  books  in  the  row  before  me, 
as  I  enter  the  door,  without  seeing  half  a 
dozen  which  I  want  to  read,  or  at  least  to 
know  something  about.  .  .  .  The  titles  of  many 
of  them  interest  me.      I  look  into  one  or  two, 

244 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

perhaps.  I  have  sometimes  picked  up  a  line 
or  sentence,  in  these  momentary  glances  be- 
tween the  uncut  leaves  of  a  new  book,  which 
I  have  never  forgotten." 

V.  WHEN   COMMERCIAL    BOSTON 
WAS   RESIDENTIAL 

THE  commercial  section  of  the  Boston 
of  to-day  differs  from  the  Boston  of 
fifty  years  ago  as  much,  perhaps,  as 
the  city  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury had  changed  from  the  town  of  wooden 
houses  of  the  Revolutionary  era.  Modern  en- 
terprise has  transformed  the  old  streets,  while 
a  whole  and  entirely  new  Boston  has  risen  on 
land  which  was  submerged  by  every  tide  and 
where  in  fresh  winds  the  salt  whitecaps  rolled 
and  tumbled  oftentimes  to  the  destruction  of 
the  viaduct  of  the  railroads  which  had  boldly 
bridged  the  waste  of  waters  which  surrounded 
the  almost  inland  city.  In  the  beginning  of  its 
life  Boston  was  essentially  a  commercial  town 
and  its  inhabitants  looked  to  the  sea  for  their 

245 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 

bread  and  for  their  riches.  The  wealth  of  its 
people  was  in  ships  above  and  far  above  every- 
thing else.  With  the  broadening  of  its  scope 
as  the  profits  from  manufacturing  came  to  the 
front,  the  relative  importance  of  its  commer- 
cial interests  declined,  and  the  residences  of  its 
wealthiest  citizens,  instead  of  clinging  along  the 
water  front,  where  tall  masts  could  be  seen 
from  the  windows  and  where  the  smell  of  tar 
constantly  greeted  the  resident,  pushed  toward 
the  westward,  as  if  the  salt  water  had  become 
of  less  interest. 

Be^innincr  our  rambles  in  this  section  of  the 
city  at  Fort  Hill  Square  we  recall  the  days  of 
The  Rebels  when  the  spot  was  not  the  level 
square  we  find  it,  but  a  hill  eighty  feet  high 
and  well  fortified.  After  the  Revolution  the 
hill,  crowned  with  its  park  and  stately  man- 
sions, as  well  as  the  streets  at  its  foot  or  which 
crawled  up  its  steep  sides,  were  the  birthplaces 
of  the  older  generation  of  aristocratic  present- 
day  Bostonians.  In  imagination  we  climb  to 
its  summit  to  find,  as  described  in  Pirate  Gold, 

246 


IN      AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

the  home  of  Miss  Abigail  Dowse  which  stood 
where  the  sea  breezes  blew  fresh  through  the 
white  June  roses  in  the  garden. 

Leaving  the  Square  and  wandering  west- 
ward through  High  Street  we  come  upon 
Pearl  Street,  where,  near  High,  once  stood 
(1822-1849)  the  Athenaeum,  a  most  interesting 
picture  of  which  is  preserved  for  us  in  the 
pages  of  Holmes's  A  Mortal  Antipathy.  "In 
those  days,"  he  reminisces,  "the  Athenaeum 
Picture  Gallery  was  a  principal  centre  of  at- 
traction to  young  Boston  people  and  their 
visitors.  Many  of  us  got  our  first  idea  of  art, 
to  say  nothing  of  our  first  lessons  in  the  com- 
paratively innocent  flirtations  of  our  city's 
primitive  period,  in  that  agreeable  resort  of 
amateurs  and  artists.  How  the  pictures  on 
those  walls  in  Pearl  Street  do  keep  their 
places  in  the  mind's  gallery !  Trumbull's 
Sortie  of  Gibraltar,  with  red  enough  in  it  for 
one  of  our  sunset  afterglows  ;  and  N eagle's  full- 
length  portrait  of  the  blacksmith  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  ;  and  Copley's  long  waistcoated  gentle- 

247 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

men  and  satin-clad  ladies — they  looked  like 
gentlemen  and  ladies,  too;  and  Stuart's  florid 
merchants  and  high-waisted  matrons  ;  and  All- 
ston's  lovely  Italian  scenery  and  dreamy,  un- 
impassioned  women,  not  forgetting  Florimel 
in  full  flight  on  her  interminable  rocking-horse, 
— you  may  still  see  her  at  the  Art  Museum; 
and  the  rival  landscapes  of  Doughty  and 
Fisher,  much  talked  of  and  largely  praised  in 
those  days  ;  and  the  Murillo, — not  from  Mar- 
shal Soult's  collection;  and  the  portrait  of 
Annibale  Caracci  by  himself,  which  cost  the 
Athenaeum  a  hundred  dollars;  and  Cole's  alle- 
gorical pictures,  and  his  immense  and  dreary 
canvas,  in  which  the  prostrate  shepherds  and 
the  angel  in  Joseph's  coat  of  many  colors  look 
as  if  they  must  have  been  thrown  in  for  noth- 
ing ;  and  West's  brawny  Lear  tearing  his 
clothes  to  pieces.  But  why  go  on  with  the 
catalogue,  when  most  of  these  pictures  can  be 
seen  either  at  the  Athenaeum  building  in  Bea- 
con Street  or  at  the  Art  Gallery,  and  admired 
or  criticised  perhaps  more  justly,  certainly  not 

2J.S 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

more  generously,  than  in  those  earlier  years 
when  we  looked  at  them  through  the  japanned 
fish-horns  ?" 

If  we  turn  from  here  into  Pearl  Place  which 
runs  through  to  Oliver  Street  we  can  conjure 
up  the  residence  of  Mrs.  Clymer  Ketchum 
(Holmes's  The  Guardian  Angel),  for  this  was 
undoubtedly  the  locality  described  in  the  novel 
as  Carat  Place.  Many  things  transpired  in  this 
house,  notably  the  party  given  for  Myrtle  at 
which  dear  old  Master  Byles  Gridley,  Gifted 
Hopkins  and  Clement  Lindsay  were  exhibited 
as  lions.  "  Mrs.  Clymer  Ketchum,  though 
her  acquaintances  were  chiefly  in  the  world  of 
fortune  and  of  fashion,  had  yet  a  certain  weak- 
ness for  what  she  called  clever  people.  She 
therefore  always  variegated  her  parties  with  a 
streak  of  young  artists  and  writers,  and  a  liter- 
ary lady  or  two ;  and,  if  she  could  lay  hands 
on  a  first-class  celebrity,  was  as  happy  as  an 
Amazon  who  had  captured  a  Centaur.  .  .  . 
She  knew  how  to  give  a  party.  Let  her  only 
have    carte  blanche  for    flowers,    music     and 

249 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

champagne,  she  used  to  tell  her  lord,  and  she 
would  see  to  the  rest.  .  .  He  needn't  be  afraid  : 
all  he  had  to  do  was  to  keep  out  of  the  way.  .  . 
Labour  was  beautifully  subdivided  in  this  lady's 
household.  It  was  old  Ketchum's  business  to 
make  money  and  he  understood  it.  It  was 
Mrs.  K.'s  business  to  spend  money,  and  she 
knew  how  to  do  it."  Somewhere  near  here 
was  the  fashionable  boarding  school  which 
Myrtle  attended  "  where  there  were  some  very 
good  instructors  for  girls  who  wished  to  get 
up  useful  knowledge  in  case  they  might  marry 
professors  or  ministers." 

Parallel  with  Pearl  Street  and  next  to  it  runs 
Congress  Street  originally  called  Green  Lane, 
but  known  as  Atkinson  Street  when  this  sec- 
tion of  the  town  was  residential.  Here,  not 
far  from  Milk  Street,  was,  says  Holmes,  in  his 
novel  A  Mortal  Antipathy,  "  a  large,  square 
painted  brick  house,  in  which  lived  a  leading 
representative  of  old-fashioned  coleopterous 
Calvinism,  and  from  which  emerged  one  of 
the  liveliest  of  literary  butterflies.     The  father 

250 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

was  editor  of  the  '  Boston  Recorder,'  a  very  re- 
spectable but  far  from  amusing  paper,  most 
largely  patronized  by  that  class  of  the  com- 
munity which  spoke  habitually  of  the  first  day 
of  the  week  as  'the  Sabbuth.'  The  son  was 
the  editor  of  several  different  periodicals  in 
succession,  none  of  them  over  severe  or  serious, 
and  of  many  pleasant  books,  filled  with  lively 
descriptions  of  society,  which  he  studied  on  the 
outside  with  a  quick  eye  for  form  and  colour, 
and  with  a  certain  amount  of  sentiment,  not 
very  deep  but  real,  though  somewhat  frothed 
over  by  his  worldly  experiences."  These  two 
men  were  Nathaniel  Willis  and  his  more 
widely  known  son  Nathaniel  P.  Willis,  de- 
scribed by  Holmes  as  something  between  a  re- 
membrance of  Count  D'Orsay  and  an  anticipa- 
tion of  Oscar  Wilde. 

From  Congress  Street  continuing-  througdi 
Hig;h  Street  we  come  next  to  Federal,  of  in- 
terest  to  the  fictional  rambler  because  here 
was  that  old  building  —  a  terra-cotta  manufac- 
tory where  Grant   Herman  (Arlo   Bates's  The 

251 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Pagans)  had  his  studio.  "It  was  a  great  mis- 
shapen place,  narrow,  half  a  hundred  feet  long, 
and  disproportionately  high,  with  undressed 
brick  walls  and  cement  floor.  The  upper  half 
of  one  of  the  end  walls  was  taken  up  with  large 
windows,  before  which  were  drawn  dingy  cur- 
tains. Here  and  there  about  the  place  were  scat- 
tered modeling-stands,  water-tanks  mounted 
upon  rude  tripods,  casts,  and  the  usual  lumberof 
a  sculptor's  studio ;  while  upon  the  walls  were 
stuck  pictures,  sketches  and  reproductions  in 
all  sorts  of  capricious  groupings.  In  one  cor- 
ner a  flight  of  stairs  led  to  a  gallery  high  up 
against  the  wall,  over  the  rude  railing  of  which 
looked  the  heads  of  a  couple  of  legless  statues. 
From  this  gallery  the  stairs  continued  to  ascend 
until  a  door  near  the  roof  was  reached,  leading 
to  unknown  regions  well  up  in  the  building 
behind  which  the  studio  had  been  built  as  an 
afterthought.  On  shelves  were  confusedly  dis- 
posed dusty  bits  of  bronze,  plaster,  coarse  pot- 
tery and  rare  glass  ;  things  valueless  and  things 
beyond  price  standing  in  careless  fellowship. 

252 


IN      AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

A  canvas  of  Corot  looked  down  upon  a  gro- 
tesque, grimacing  Japanese  idol,  a  beautiful 
bronze  reproduction  of  a  vase  of  Michael  An- 
o-elo  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  a  bean- 
pot  full  of  tobacco ;  a  crumpled  cravat  was 
thrown  carelessly  over  the  arm  of  a  dancing 
faun,  while  a  cluster  of  Barye's  matchless  ani- 
mals were  apparently  making  their  way  with 
great  difficulty  through  a  collection  of  pipes, 
broken  modeling-tools,  faded  flowers  and  loose 
papers.  Everywhere  it  was  evident  that  the 
studio  of  Herman  differed  from  heaven  in 
at  least  its  first  law." 

In  his  description  of  this  Mr.  Bates  permits 
himself  one  of  his  rare  drawings  "from  the 
model."  The  original,  the  studio  of  Bartlett, 
the  well-known  sculptor,  was  the  fascinating 
place  pictured  in  the  novel.  Here,  many  a 
night  in  conclave  gay  gathered  that  brilliant 
group  of  men  typical  of  the  finest  spirit  of  Bo- 
hemianism  as  lived  twenty  years  ago  in  Boston 
by  such  men  as  Bartlett,  Hunt  and  George 
Fuller — -friends  and   associates  of  Mr.   Bates 

253 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

whom  it  is  natural  to  suppose  were  more  or  less 
in  his  mind  when  he  created  The  Pagans. 

In  an  old  house  in  Federal  Street  Miss  Lu- 
cretia  and  other  members  of  the  aristocratic 
Daintry  family  (James's  A  New  England  Win- 
ter) were  born  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. This  locality  in  its  modern  commercial 
aspect  is  identified  with  The  Rise  of  Silas 
Lapham,  for  here  was  his  counting-room  and 
the  warehouses  where  the  redoubtable  Colonel 
carried  on  his  mineral  paint  business.  "The 
streets  were  all  narrow  and  most  of  them 
crooked  in  that  quarter  of  the  town  ;  but  at  the 
end  of  one  the  spars  of  a  vessel  penciled 
themselves  delicately  against  the  cool  blue  of 
the  afternoon  sky.  The  air  was  full  of  a  smell 
pleasantly  compounded  of  oakum,  of  leather, 
and  of  oil.  .  .  The  cobblestones  of  the  pave- 
ment were  worn  with  the  dint  of  ponderous 
wheels,  and  discoloured  with  iron  rust  from 
them ;  here  and  there,  in  wandering  streaks 
over  its  surface,  was  the  grey  stain  of  the  salt 
water  with  which  the  street  had  been  sprinkled." 

254 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Turning  back  from  Federal  through  High, 
we  come  into  Summer  Street,  famed  as  the  most 
beautiful  residential  thoroughfare  of  its  day  in 
Boston.  In  writing  of  this  neighbourhood  in 
I [itJicrto  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.  Whitney  reminds  us 
that  those  were  the  days  "  when  the  city  was 
not  conglomerate  but  individual,  and  there 
were  houses  of  home  quiet  in  cool,  watered 
streets  and  unprofaned  '  Places,'  where  vines 
covered  the  house  fronts  and  caged  birds  sang 
in  the  windows,  and  great  crowns  of  forest 
trees  surged  up  among  the  chimneys."  Boston, 
she  says,  was  in  her  pleasant  young  matronhood 
then.  Near  Church  Green  at  the  intersection 
of  Bedford  and  Summer  Streets — the  trian^u- 
lar  piece  of  land,  on  which  then  stood  a  church, 
is  now  solidly  built  over  by  wholesale  stores  — 
lived  the  Holgates  (Hitherto)  with  a  charming 
garden  at  the  back  of  their  house.  In  much 
of  her  Boston  fiction  Mrs.  Whitney  describes 
city  life  with  a  rural  flavour. 

Washington  Street,  busiest  of  thoroughfares, 
into  which  Summer  leads,  in  its  shopping  dis- 

255 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

trict  fifty  years  ago  is  referred  to  in  Mrs.  Whit- 
ney's Hitherto  as  "dear  old  mixed-up  Wash- 
ington Street,  where  everything  was  small  and 
wedged  together  and  you  knew  your  way  by 
the  angles  and  corners,  and  nothing  stared  out 
at  you  through  great  plate  glass,  but  you  must 
know  enough  to  begin  with  to  go  in  and  en- 
quire." That  priggish  young  hero  of  Mr.  Henry 
James's  A  New  England  Winter,  Florimond 
(who  owed  his  romantic  name  to  the  fact  that 
everyone  was  reading  ballads  in  Boston  at  the 
time  he  was  born,  and  his  mother  had  found 
the  name  in  a  ballad),  in  walking  through 
Washington  Street  observed  that  "  supreme  in 
the  thoroughfare  was  the  rigid  groove  of  the 
railway,  where  were  oblong  receptacles  of  fab- 
ulous capacity,  governed  by  familiar  citizens, 
jolted  and  jingled  eternally,  close  on  each  oth- 
er's rear,  absorbing  and  emitting  innumerable 
specimens  of  a  single  type.  The  road  on 
either  side  was  traversed  periodically  by  the 
sisterhood  of  shoppers  laden  with  satchels 
and  parcels  and  protected  by  a  round-backed 

256 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

policeman."  Though  this  was  as  seen  by 
Florimond  twenty  years  ago,  it  remains  an 
exact  picture  of  the  street  to-day. 

Mr.  Howells,  in  A  Woman  s  Reason,  makes 
a  characteristic  comment  in  writing  of  this 
locality  when  he  says  :  "  There  is  doubtless 
more  shopping  in  New  York  or  London  or 
Paris,  but  in  these  cities  it  is  dispersed  over  a 
larger  area,  and  nowhere  in  the  world  perhaps 
has  shopping  such  an  intensity  of  physiognomy 
as  in  Boston.  It  is  unsparingly  sincere  in  its 
expression.  It  means  business,  and  the  sole 
business  of  the  city  seems  to  be  shopping." 

This  street  produced  a  most  unpleasant 
effect  upon  the  hero  of  Bellamy's  Looking 
Backward  when  he  awoke  from  his  long  sleep 
to  the  Boston  of  the  nineteenth  century.  "  I 
reached  Washington  Street  at  the  busiest 
point,  and  there  I  stood  and  laughed  aloud, 
to  the  scandal  of  the  passers-by.  For  my  life 
I  could  not  have  helped  it,  with  such  a  mad 
humour  was  I  moved  at  sight  of  the  intermi- 
nable rows   of   stores  on  either  side,  up  and 

257 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

down  the  street  as  far  as  I  could  see — scores  of 
them,  to  make  the  spectacle  more  utterly  pre- 
posterous—  within  a  stone's  throw  devoted  to 
selling  the  same  sort  of  goods.  Stores  !  stores  ! 
stores  !  miles  of  stores  !  Ten  thousand  stores 
to  distribute  the  goods  needed  by  this  one  city, 
which  in  my  dream  had  been  supplied  with  all 
things  from  a  single  warehouse,  as  they  were 
ordered  through  one  great  store  in  every  quar- 
ter, where  the  buyer,  without  waste  of  time 
or  labour,  found  under  one  roof  the  world's 
assortment  in  whatever  line  he  desired." 

Leaving  the  shopping  district  and  proceed- 
ing eastward  we  approach,  at  the  corner  of 
Washington  and  Milk  streets,  that  hallowed 
spot  where  stands  the  Old  South  Church,  one 
of  the  oldest  monuments  in  Boston.  So  splen- 
didly historical  a  thing  was  not  to  be  ignored 
by  the  poet  and  novelist.      Sings  Dr.  Holmes: 

Full  sevenscore  years  our  city's  pride  — 

The  comely  southern  spire  — 
Has  cast  its  shadow,  and  defied 

The  storm,  the  foe,  the  fire. 

258 


Full  sevenscore  years  our  city's  pride- 
The  comely  southern  spire — 

Has  cast  its  shadow,  and  defied 
The  storm,  the  foe,  the  fire." 

— Holmes. 


259 


IN      AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  people  of  Lydta 
M.  Child's  Rebels  listened  with  varied  emo- 
tions to  the  deafening  clang  from  the  steeple 
which  was  part  of  the  celebration  of  the  repeal 
of  the  Stamp  Act.  And  Cooper's  British 
Lionel  Lincoln  on  his  return  to  Boston  had 
his  first  glimpse  of  the  edifice  —  known  through- 
out New  England  with  a  species  of  veneration 
—  when  led  there  by  Job  Pray,  who  said: 
"  This  is  what  you  call  a  church,  though  I  call 
it  a  meetin'  'us.  ...  It's  no  wonder  you  don't 
know  it,  for  what  the  people  built  for  a  temple 
the  King  has  turned  into  a  stable."  On  enter- 
ing, Cooper  tells  us,  Lionel  was  amazed  to  find 
he  stood  in  an  area  fitted  for  the  exercise  of 
the  cavalry.  The  naked  galleries  and  many  of 
the  original  ornaments  were  standing  ;  but  the 
accommodations  below  were  destroyed,  and  in 
their  places  the  floor  had  been  covered  with 
earth  for  the  horses  and  their  riders  to  prac- 
tice in  the  cavesson.  "  The  abominations  of 
the  place  even  now  offended  his  senses,  as  he 
stood  on  that  spot  where  he  remembered   so 

261 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

often  to  have  seen  the  grave  and  pious  colo- 
nists assemble  in  crowds  to  worship."  This  is 
what  is  meant  by  the  last  line  on  the  tablet 
now  in  front  of  the  church,  which  in  its  en- 
tirety reads : 

Old  South. 

Church  gathered  in  1669. 

First  House  built  in   1670. 

This  House  erected   1729. 

Desecrated  by  British  Troops,  1775-6. 

Chaplain  J.  J.  Kane  chooses  this  old  land- 
mark whereon  to  hang  his  weird  tale,  Ilian;  or 
the  Curse  of  the  Old  South  Church  of  Boston, 
which,  as  he  says,  is  the  story  of  a  great  crime 
and  the  punishment  meted  out  to  the  guilty 
—  in  the  narration  of  which  he  apparently 
drew  inspiration  from  every  quarter  of  the 
globe  and  the  oceans  of  the  world,  which  he 
takes  pleasure  in  mentioning  at  length  in  his 
introduction,  written  in  1888  on  board  the  U.  S. 
flagship  Pensacola.  The  porch  of  the  church 
is  the  scene  of  many  secret  meetings  between 

262 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Professor  Homerand,  of  this  novel,  and  the 
beautiful  Southern  spy,  Helen  Claymuire,  of 
South  Carolina,  frequently  at  an  hour  when 
the  bell  tolled  midnight.  Here,  frenzied  at 
the  thought  that  the  Professor  meant  to  marry 
Miss  Rathmire,  the  Southern  woman  called 
down  the  malediction  of  retributive  divine 
justice  upon  their  union.  It  was  a  terrible 
curse  —  prophetic  of  accumulated  miseries  — 
and  with  it  she  left  him.  "He  looked  up  at  the 
face  of  the  clock  to  find  pity  there,  but  the 
square  steeple  only  frowned  down  upon  him, 
as  if  to  corroborate  the  fearful  words  just 
spoken." 

All  of  which  did  not  prevent  this  Dr.  Jekyll- 
and-Mr.-Hyde  sort  of  man  from  marrying  Miss 
Rathmire  on  the  day  appointed.  "At  noon 
the  bell  in  the  steeple  of  the  Old  South  Church 
rang  out  a  wedding  refrain,  and  the  edifice  was 
packed  to  overflowing.  After  the  ceremony, 
in  the  porch  of  the  church,  the  bridegroom  was 
destined  to  encounter  his  former  love  stand- 
ing .  .  .  like  a  statue  of  the  goddess  Athena, 

263 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

calm,  dignified  and  haughty,  with  a  look  of 
scorn  that  pierced  to  the  soul  of  the  guilty 
man."  How  the  curse  affected  the  life  of  the 
Professor,  all  who  run  may  read  in  the  pages  of 
Ilian.  Emerging  from  the  porch — by  Chap- 
lain Kane  so  darkly  shadowed  —  into  the  sun- 
shine of  the  street,  it  is  charming  to  look  up 
and  imagine  what,  no  doubt,  the  poet  N.  P. 
Willis  saw  : 

On  the  cross-beam  under  the  Old  South  bell 
The  nest  of  a  pigeon  is  builded  well. 

In  Colonial  days  the  Old  South  stood  al- 
most under  the  windows  of  the  dignified  Prov- 
ince House,  the  residence  of  many  of  the 
royal  governors.  This  ancient  abode  was 
standing  as  late  as  1864  on  the  site  of  what  is 
now  Province  Court  and  was  originally  sur- 
rounded by  fine  lawns  and  trees  as  shown  in 
the  illustration.  Hawthorne,  who  weaves  four 
fanciful  legends  about  it — Howes  Masquerade, 
Edward  Randolph's  Portrait,  Lady  Eleanore  s 
Mantle,  and  Old  Esther  Dudley — thus  describes 
it  in  his  day  :     "  Entering  an  arched  passage, 

264 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 


"The  square  front  of  the  Province  House, 
three  stories  high,  and  surmounted  by  a  cupola, 
on  the  top  of  which  a  gilded  Indian  was  dis- 
cernible."— Hawthorne's  "Legends  of  the  Prov- 
ince House." 


which  penetrated  through  the  middle  of  a 
brick  row  of  shops,  a  few  steps  transported  me 
from  the  busy  heart  of  modern  Boston  into  a 

265 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 

small  and  secluded  courtyard.  One  side  of  this 
space  was  occupied  by  the  square  front  of  the 
Province  House,  three  stories  high,  and  sur- 
mounted by  a  cupola,  on  the  top  of  which  a 
gilded  Indian  was  discernible,  with  his  bow 
bent  and  his  arrow  on  the  string,  as  if  aiming 
at  the  weathercock  on  the  spire  of  the  Old 
South."  This  Indian  was  carved  by  Deacon 
Shem  Drowne,  to  whom,  as  the  hero  of 
one  of  Hawthorne's  tales,  allusion  has  been 
made. 

In  earlier  times  than  this  the  historic  man- 
sion is  to  be  seen  in  festival  attire  if  we  go  with 
Captain  Somerville,  the  Osbornes  and  Dr. 
Willard  of  The  Rebels,  who,  walking  out  to  wit- 
ness the  celebration  of  the  repeal  of  the  stamp 
act,  stop  opposite  the  Province  House  to  ex- 
amine the  fanciful  devices  that  had  been  pre- 
pared, in  the  eagerness  of  gratitude  and  joy. 
A  full-length  picture  of  Liberty  hurling  a 
broken  chain  to  the  winds  particularly  at- 
tracted their  attention.  Another  picture  of  this 
interesting  house  we  have  in  Mr.  Chamber's 

266 


IN      AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

Cardigan  when  on  a  rainy  night  "  the  Gover- 
nor was  giving  a  play  and  a  supper  to  the 
wealthy  Tory  families  of  Boston  and  to  all  the 
officers  of  the  British  regiments  quartered  in 
the  city.  .  .  .  The  stony  street  echoed  with  the 
clatter  of  shod  horses,  the  rattle  of  wheels,  the 
shouts  of  footmen,  and  the  bawling  of  chair- 
bearers.  In  the  Province  House  fiddlers  were 
fiddling,  .  .  .  in  the  street  we  could  hear  them 
plainly  and  the  sweet  confusion  of  voices  and  a 
young  girl's  laughter." 

VI.  IN   TREMONT  STREET  AND 
MUSIC   HALL 

DIRECTLY  north  of  the  Province 
House,  and  like  it  now  demolished, 
stood  in  Tremont  Street,  at  the  cor- 
ner of  Beacon,  the  Tremont  House,  where 
Thackeray,  Dickens  and  other  foreign  notables 
stayed,  and  which,  Dickens  said,  "  had  more 
galleries,  colonnades,  piazzas  and  passages 
than  he  could  remember  or  the  reader 
would    believe."       He    has    left    us    a   most 

267 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

amusing  account  of    the  first  order   he  gave 
at  this  hotel : 

"  Dinner,  if  you  please,"  said  I  to  the  waiter. 

"  When  ?  "  said  the  waiter. 

"As  quick  as  possible,"  said  I. 

"  Right  away?  "  said  the  waiter. 

After  a  moment's  hesitation  I  answered,  "  No,"  at 
a  hazard. 

"Not  right  away?"  cried  the  waiter,  with  an 
amount  of  surprise  that  made  me  start. 

I  looked  at  him  doubtfully,  and  returned,  "  No  ;  I 
would  rather  have  it  in  this  private  room.  I  like  it 
very  much." 

At  this  I  really  thought  the  waiter  must  have  gone 
out  of  his  mind  ;  as  I  believe  he  would  have  done  but 
for  the  interposition  of  another  man,  who  whispered 
in  his  ear,  "  Directly." 

li  Well !  and  that's  a  fact !  "  said  the  waiter,  look- 
ing helplessly  at  me  :  "  Right  away." 

I  saw  now  that  "  Right  away  "  and  "  Directly  " 
were  one  and  the  same  thing.  So  I  reversed  my 
previous  answer,  and  sat  down  to  dinner  ten  minutes 
afterward  ;  and  a  capital  dinner  it  was. 

John  T.  Trowbridge,  in  his  novel  Martin 
Merrivale,  tells  us  that  the  hero  had  an  unsat- 
isfactory meeting  with  his  uncle  at  the  Tre- 
mont   House,  while  it  is  further  invested  with 

26s 


IN      AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

literary  interest  from  the  fact  that  in  one  of 
its  private  rooms  were  held,  in  the  forties,  the 
meetings  of  "The  Jacobins'  Club,"  humour- 
ously so  dubbed  by  the  literary  men  of  which 
it  was  formed — radical  thinkers  and  reform- 
ers, all  of  them.  In  literature  these  men,  says 
a  recent  writer,  "  were  essayists,  ready  to  over- 
haul art,  science,  philosophy  and  theology 
with  improved  microscopes." 

The  side  windows  of  the  Tremont  House 
overlooked  the  Granary  Burying-ground  —  a 
burial-QTound,  according  to  a  Western  hu- 
mourist,  being  "  part  and  parcel  of  all  Boston 
hotels."  Bynner's  hero,  Sir  Harry  Frankland, 
attended  the  burial  in  the  Granary  ground  of 
Mr.  Peter  Faneuil,  and  nearby  is  the  grave  of 
young  Benjamin  Woodbridge,  beside  which 
the  Autocrat  and  the  Schoolmistress  mourned 
so  sentimentally.  "  The  grey  squirrels,"  says 
the  Autocrat,  "were  looking  out  for  their 
breakfasts,  and  one  of  them  came  toward  us  in 
the  light,  soft,  intermittent  leaps,  until  he  was 
close  to  the  rail  of  the  burial-ground.     He  was 

269 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

on  a  grave  with  a  broad  blue  slate  stone  at  its 
head  and  a  shrub  growing  on  it.     Stop  before 


"  Stop  before  we  turn  away  and  breathe  a 
woman's  sigh  over  poor  Benjamin  Woodbridge's 
dust.  Love  killed  him,  I  think.  .  .  .  The 
Schoolmistress  dropped  a  rosebud  she  had  in  her 
hand,  through  the  rails,  upon  the  grave." — 
"  The  Atitocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table." 

we  turn  away  and  breathe  a  woman's  sigh  over 
poor  Benjamin  Woodbridge's  dust.  Love  killed 
him,  I  think.  .  .  .  The  Schoolmistress  dropped 

270 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

a  rosebud  she  had  in  her  hand,  through  the 
rails,  upon  the  grave."  In  The  Pagans  of 
Arlo  Bates  we  find  Fenton,  from  one  of  the 
windows  of  his  studio,  admiring  the  tops  of 
the  trees  of  the  old  Granary  ground  opposite. 
This  interesting  burying-ground  gets  its  name 
from  the  town  granary  which  in  the  early  days 
it  surrounded. 

Across  from  here  a  little  eastward  stands 
Tremont  Temple,  to-day  a  new  edifice  in  place 
of  the  one  in  which,  in  The  Bostonians,  Henry 
James  writes:  "The  only  thing  that  was  still 
actual  for  Miss  Birdseye  was  the  elevation  of 
the  species  by  the  reading  of  Emerson  and 
the  frequentation  of  Tremont  Temple."  And 
in  another  part  of  the  novel  he  tells  us  that 
Verena  Tarrant's  mother  had  no  higher  ambi- 
tion for  her  daughter  than  she  should  marry  a 
person  connected  with  public  life  —  which 
meant  for  Mrs.  Tarrant  that  his  name  would 
be  visible  in  the  lamplight,  on  a  coloured 
poster,  in  the  doorway  of  Tremont  Temple. 

To  the  initiated  the  place  recalls  the  man, 
271 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

a  musical  eccentric,  who  under  a  thin  disguise 
figures  as  Killings  in  Martin  Merrivale.  He 
made  himself  notorious  in  the  Boston  of  his 
day  by  purchasing  at  auction  in  Tremont 
Temple  the  first  ticket  sold  for  Jenny  Lind's 
concert,  for  which  he  paid  the  fabulous  price 
of  $625.  This  so  roused  public  curiosity  that 
his  hitherto  slimly  attended  concerts  were 
crowded,  and  his  seemingly  reckless  expendi- 
ture of  money  proved  the  good  investment  he 
intended.  In  speaking  recently  of  this  man — 
the  prototype  of  Killings — Mr.  Trowbridge 
said  that  many  Bostonians  would  recall  certain 
posters  which  flooded  such  shop  windows  as 
would  take  them  during  Jenny  Lind's  stay. 
Very  large  and  highly  coloured  posters  they 
were,  representing  a  group  of  three  figures  — 
the  central  one,  Jenny  Lind,  flanked  by  P.  T. 
Barnum,  her  manager,  in  the  act  of  presenting 
to  her  with  a  great  flourish  the  man  to  whom 
her  song  was  "  beyond  the  dreams  of  ava- 
rice." In  Martin  Merrivale  Killings  also 
figured  as  publisher  and  editor  of  the  Liter- 

272 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

ary  Portfolio,  which  existed  in  fact  as  the 
Literary  Museum. 

Near  Tremont  Temple,  with  entrances  in 
Hamilton  place,  School  and  Winter  Streets,  is 
the  Music  Hall,  recently  descended  to  the 
level  of  variety  shows,  but  for  many  years  a 
distinctive  institution  not  to  be  overlooked  by 
any  novelist  wishing  to  portray  Boston  faith- 
fully. "  As  all  the  world  knows,"  says  Henry 
James,  in  The Bostonians,  "  the  opportunities  in 
Boston  for  hearing  good  music  are  numerous 
and  excellent,  and  it  had  lono-  been  Olive's 
practice  to  cultivate  the  best.  She  went  in,  as 
the  phrase  is,  for  the  superior  programmes,  and 
in  the  high,  dim,  dignified  Music  Hall  which 
has  echoed  in  its  time  so  much  eloquence  and 
so  much  melody,  and  of  which  the  very  propor- 
tions and  colour  seem  to  teach  respect  and  at- 
tention, shed  the  protection  of  its  illuminated 
cornice  upon  no  faces  more  intelligently  up- 
turned than  those  of  Olive  and  Verena." 

This  was  the  hall  daringly  engaged  for 
Verena's  debut,  by  Olive,  who  felt  it  was  the 

273 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

only  temple  in  which  the  votaries  of  their  creed 
could  worship.  Brainy  little  Dr.  Prance  de- 
scribed the  place  as  pretty  big,  but  not  so 
big  as  Olive  Chancellor's  ideas  —  ideas  for 
the  emancipation  of  her  sex,  destined  to  be 
ruthlessly  crushed  by  the  masculinity  of  the 
determined  Basil  Ransom.  Who  does  not 
remember  how,  suddenly  coming  to  Boston  for 
Verena,  her  found  her  appearance  in  Music 
Hall  immensely  advertised.  "  As  he  gazed 
down  the  vista,  the  approach  for  pedestrians 
which  leads  out  of  Winter  Street,  he  thought 
it  looked  expectant  and  ominous."  And  that 
night  we  know  the  impatient  audience  called 
in  vain  for  Verena,  who  never  made  the  great 
speech  which  was  to  liberate  her  sex  from  bon- 
dage, but  was  literally  snatched  bodily  from 
the  anteroom  by  her  masterful  lover,  who  dra- 
matically whirled  her  off  to  live  for  him  in- 
stead of  for  the  "  cause." 

It  was  during  a  Symphony  concert  in  Music 
Hall  that  Truth  Dexter  in  the  novel  of  that 
name,  inwardly  tortured  by  the  thought  that 

274 


•fi^. 


2S 


a  •§ 

1)  ._ 
en    ^ 


275 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

her  husband  did  not  love  her,  was  taken  ill  and 
rushed  precipitately  from  the  building.  To 
these  Saturday  evening  concerts  accompanied, 
after  he  went  blind,  by  the  ever  devoted  Kate, 
came  Dan  Howard,  whom  Miss  Frothingham 
makes  appeal  so  tremendously  to  our  sympa- 
thies in  The  Turn  of  the  Road.  As  Mrs. 
Staggchase's  guest  (Arlo  Bates's  The  Pfiilis- 
tincs)  Miss  Marrivale  is  taken  to  the  concerts 
"  where  a  handful  of  people  gathered  to  hear 
the  music,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  crowded 
for  the  sake  of  having  been  there." 

These  concerts  are  always  preceded  by  a  pub- 
lic rehearsal  on  Friday  afternoons,  which,  in 
Her  Boston  Experiences,  Margaret  Allison  as- 
sures us  no  one  enjoys,  in  the  ordinary  accep- 
tation of  that  term,  but  every  one  respects, 
exalts,  bends  the  knee,  imbibes  —  yea,  even 
unto  the  state  of  worship  known  at  Beyreuth. 
Another  novelist,  Eliza  Orne  White,  in  her 
clever  portrayal  of  a  typical  young  woman  of 
the  Hub,  unhesitatingly  declares  that  Mary 
{Miss  Brooks)  went  to  the   rehearsals   from  a 

277 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

sense  of  duty  mingled  with  a  desire  to  see  her 
friends.  John  Graham,  whom  she  dragged 
along,  owned  frankly  to  himself  that  he  went 
to  see  Mary.  It  was  only  Janet,  of  the  Brooks 
family^  who  really  loved  the  music  which  "  ex- 
alted her,  and  made  her  feel  there  was  no 
heroic  deed  she  could  not  do."  Though  the  af- 
fair was  called  a  lecture,  in  accordance  with  the 
time-honoured  custom  of  Boston,  Crawford 
would  have  us  understand  it  was  a  political 
speech  his  hero,  An  American  Politician,  made 
there.  In  his  audience  was  a  little  colony  of 
Beacon  Street.  "  It  is  not  often  that  Beacon 
Street  goes  to  such  lectures,  but  John  was  one 
of  themselves." 

In  Tremont  Street,  only  a  few  steps  away 
from  old  Music  Hall  (the  new  one,  called  Sym- 
phony Hall,  is  out  in  Huntington  Avenue),  is 
the  Studio  Building,  once  the  working  place 
exclusively  of  artists,  but  now  encroached  upon 
bv  business  in  one  form  or  another.  Two  of 
Arlo  Bates's  Pagans,  Arthur  Fenton  and  Tom 
Bendy,  had  studios  there,  where  in  reality  oc- 

278 


IN      AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

curred,  recently  said  Mr.  Bates  in  discussing 
this  novel,  far  more  brilliant  and  original  talk 
among  the  actual  Pagans  than  is  the  imaginary 
conversation  he  makes  for  them.  Bently's 
studio,  says  the  novelist,  was  the  envy  of  all 
his  brother  artists  with  its  "  stuffs  from  Algiers, 
rugs  from  Persia  and  Turkey  ;  weapons  from 
Tripoli  and  India  and  Tunis  ;  musical  instru- 
ments from  Egypt  and  Spain  ;  antiques  from 
Greece  and  Germany  and  Italy;  and  pottery 
from  everywhere."  Differing,  but  equally 
luxurious  was  Fenton's,  where  much  that  was 
dramatic  in  the  book  occurs. 


279 


ABOUT  BOSTON 


I.  CAMBRIDGE  AND  LEXINGTON 

SURROUNDING  the  Three-hilled  City 
are  what  may  some  time  become  part 
of  it,  but  now,  and  even  more  years 
ago,  were  communities  having  an  independent 
existence,  yet  closely  united  to  the  metropolis. 
Dorchester  Heights,  historic  as  the  command- 
ing eminence  on  which  the  Americans  erected 
their  batteries  to  drive  the  British  fleet  from 
the  harbour,  has  become  in  these  later  days 
South  Boston  ;  the  pudding-stone  region  of 
Roxbury  and  the  ancient  Charlestown  have 
joined  as  a  part  of  the  greater  city,  while 
Cambridge  —  "old  Cambridge,"  as  its  many 
lovers  fondly  call  it  —  remains  an  independent 
community. 

Our    grandfathers    tell    us   that  before    the 
283 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

days  of  the  railroads  when  communication  was 
over  the  highways,  the  teamsters  hauling 
freight  to  and  from  Boston  were  wont  to 
spend  the  night  at  Cambridge  or  Roxbury 
before  and  after  leaving  the  city,  thereby  en- 
abling them  to  appear  in  town  in  the  very 
early  morn  as  well  as  to  make  a  fresh  start  at 
dawn  well  away  from  the  cobble-stone  pave- 
ment of  the  centre  of  business.  Consequently 
at  the  "  Neck  "  which  connected  Boston  with 
Roxbury,  at  the  west  end  of  Cambridge  bridge, 
and  at  a  point  on  the  Mill  Dam  where  it  inter- 
sected with  a  road  to  Brookline,  there  devel- 
oped such  clusters  of  buildings  as  might  be 
the  natural  growth  of  business  from  such  a 
source.  Small  taverns  surrounded  by  piazzas  ; 
huge  barns  and  stables  which  rambled  off 
into  a  wilderness  of  open  sheds  ;  blacksmith's 
shops  with  open  doors,  smoking  forges,  ring- 
ing anvils  and  stamping  horses  ;  wheelwrights, 
harness  makers,  coopers  and  cobblers  carrying 
on  their  trades  in  the  humble  frame  buildings 
which  were  the  homes  of  these  artizans.      Of 

284 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

such  primitive  little  centres  of  business  there 
are  few  traces  to-day,  but  from  them  grew 
the  closely  built  streets  of  Cambridge-port 
and  the  busy  traffic  of  the  extreme  South 
End. 

The  old  Cambridge  of  colonial  davs  forms 
the  setting  for  Bynner's  Penelope  s  Suitors. 
Penelope  Pelham,  who  existed  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  fiction,  was  a  charming  young  woman 
who  came  from  the  old  England  to  the  New 
in  1638  and  married,  under  rather  unusual  cir- 
cumstances, Governor  Bellingham.  The  nov- 
elist, in  journalistic  form,  has  her  tell  us  that 
on  landing  she  went  "  straightway  to  brother 
William's  plantation  at  Cambridge,  which  is 
three  miles  and  over  from  the  town  of  Boston. 
He  hath  a  large  plantation  and  a  fine  house, 
with  a  troop  of  people,  amongst  which  are  sev- 
eral blackamoors."  In  the  beautiful  warden  of 
this  estate  the  Governor  declared  his  love  to 
Penelope,  whose  fiance,  Buckley,  made  a  dra- 
matic scene  by  appearing  at  an  inopportune 
moment.      Penelope  was  married  to  Governor 

285 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Richard  Bellingham  in  1641  and  survived  him 
many  years,  dying  in  Boston  in  1 702. 

Another  of  Bynner's  heroines,  Agnes  Surri- 
age,  frequently  went  with  Sir  Harry  Frank- 
land  to  Cambridge,  and  is  quite  as  much  iden- 
tified with  Hobgoblin  Hall,  not  far  away  — 
the  finest  estate  of  its  time  in  New  England. 
The  grand  old  mansion,  confiscated  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  is  still  standing  and 
well  worth  a  trip  to  Medford  to  see.  Agnes 
and  the  Collector,  the  novelist  tells  us,  went 
there  many  a  time  to  wait  upon  Mistress 
Penelope  Royall. 

Fictional  interest  in  Cambridge  centres  in 
and  about  Harvard  Square,  with  a  ramble 
westward  as  far  as  Mount  Auburn.  Of  the 
University  peopled  with  fictitious  students 
whose  haunts  we  wish  to  discover,  much  will 
be  told  in  the  following  chapter.  For  the 
moment  the  town  itself  as  the  novelists  have 
depicted  it,  occupies  us. 

"  Cambridge,"  says  Mr.  Pier  in  The  Peda- 
gogues, "  is  romantic  in  much   the  same  way  as 

286 


287 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

Rome  is  modern.  One  never  really  thinks 
of  it  being  so,  and  yet  it  is.  Rome  is  over- 
shadowed by  its  past :  Cambridge  is  made  op- 
pressively real  by  the  proximity  of  Boston. 
Cambridge  is,  after  all,  not  a  city  :  it  is  a  soul." 

The  charming  atmosphere  of  the  old  univer- 
sity town  was  strongly  felt  by  Mrs.  Harrison 
Gray  Otis,  who  remarks  in  The  Barclays  of 
Boston,  that  the  Gordons,  fresh  from  the 
splendour  and  magnificence  of  foreign  courts, 
preferred  the  quiet  simplicity  of  a  Cambridge 
life  to  the  more  pretentious  one  of  a  city. 
"  There  is  an  equality  and  evenness  in  the 
condition  of  all  the  society  connected  with  the 
University  which  completely  extinguishes  all 
striving  for  what  is  perpetually  in  the  mouths 
of  our  people." 

In  his  Suburban  Sketches  Mr.  Howells  gives 
many  a  delightful  glimpse  of  rural  Cambridge 
as  he  found  it  when  he  went  there  to  live.  "  It 
was  very  quiet,"  he  tells  us.  "  We  called  one 
another  to  the  window  if  a  large  dog  went  by 
our  door  ;  and  whole  days  passed  without  the 

28q\ 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

movement  of  any  wheels  but  the  butcher's  upon 
our  street,  which  flourished  in  flag  weed  and 
buttercups  and  daisies  and  in  the  autumn 
like  the  borders  of  nearly  all  the  streets  in 
Charlesbridge,  with  the  pallid  azure  flame  of 
the  succory."  He  dwells,  too,  on  the  climate,  so 
disagreeable  in  the  winter,  so  lovely  in  the 
spring.  "  Then,  indeed,  Charlesbridge  ap- 
peared to  us  a  kind  of  Paradise.  The  wind 
blew  all  day  from  the  southwest  and  all  day  in 
the  grove  across  the  way  the  orioles  sang  to 
their  nestlings."  The  beauty  and  witchery  of 
the  Cambridge  spring  is  a  theme  on  which  all 
the  novelists  writing  of  this  locality  wax  elo- 
quent. 

Leading  into  Harvard  Square  is  the  avenue 
now  called  Massachusetts,  the  Cambridge 
residential  part  of  which  Henry  James  de- 
scribes in  The  Bostonians  as  a  street  "  fringed 
on  either  side  with  villas  offering  themselves 
trustfully  to  the  public.  .  .  The  detached 
houses  had,  on  top,  little  cupolas  and  belve- 
deres, in  front  pillared  piazzas — on  either  side 

290 


c-. 


g   q 


5  Sl 


O    <,    p 

:    W 
3 


291 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

a  bow  window  or  two,  and  everywhere  an  em- 
bellishment of  scallops,  brackets,  cornices  and 
wooden  flourishes.  They  stood  for  the  most 
part  on  small  eminences  lifted  above  the  im- 
pertinence of  hedge  or  paling,  well  up  before 
the  world  with  all  the  good  conscience  which  in 
many  cases  came  from  a  silvered  number  af- 
fixed to  the  glass  above  the  door." 

Off  this  avenue  was  the  temporary  lair  of 
Dr.  Tarrent  {The  Bostonians),  "a  wooden  cot- 
tage, with  a  rough  front  yard,  a  little  naked 
piazza  facing  upon  an  unpaved  road,  in  which 
the  footway  was  overlaid  with  a  strip  of  planks. 
These  planks  were  embedded  in  ice  or  liquid 
thaw,  according  to  the  momentary  mood  of  the 
weather,  and  the  advancing  pedestrian  trav- 
ersed them  in  the  attitude,  and  with  a  good 
deal  of  the  suspense  of  a  rope  dancer."  In 
Monadnoc  Place  a  sightless  soundless,  inter- 
spaced embryonic  region  was  the  dismal  resi- 
dence of  the  mesmeric  healer. 

Just  beyond  the  college  yard,  northwestward 
in  Garden  Street,  stands  the  historic  old  Christ 

293 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 

Church,  the  graveyard  of  which  is  of  fictional 
interest  as  being  the  spot  where  Ralph 
(Cooper's  Lionel  Lincoln)  under  exciting  and 
gruesome  conditions,  told  Lionel  the  strange 
story  of  his  parentage.  "  Thou  hast  reached 
the  spot,"  dramatically  announced  the  old  man, 
"  where  moulder  the  bones  of  one  who  long 
supported  thee.  Unthinking  boy,  that  sacri- 
legious foot  treads  on  thy  mother's  grave." 
The  rambler  will  look  in  vain  for  this  fictitious 
grave,  but  there  are  many  actual  ones  of  inter- 
est, notably  that  of  Madame  Vassall  who 
was  one  of  the  family  whom  Agnes  and 
the  Collector  {Agnes  Surriage)  visited  at 
Hobgoblin  Hall.  She  lived  in  the  man- 
sion now  known  as  the  Longfellow  House, 
and  the  poet  pays  his  tribute  to  the  great 
lady: 

In  the  village  churchyard  she  lies. 
Dust  in  her  beautiful  eyes  ; 

No  more  she  breathes,  nor  feels,  nor  stirs  ; 
At  her  feet  and  at  her  head 
Lies  a  slave  to  attend  the  dead-, 

But  their  dust  is  as  white  as  hers. 
294 


C    rt    £  -v. 

(U    _    —    !> 


oj    c    c;  O 


■5  I 


c  C  i> 


o  £  £ 
c  c  o 


^95 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Nearby,  on  what  is  now  a  part  of  the  grounds 
of  the  Law  School  building,  stood  (until  1884) 
the  '  o-ambrel-roofed  house"  which  was  the 
birthplace  of  the  Autocrat,  and  in  Revolution- 
ary days  the  headquarters  of  General  Artemus 
Ward  —  where  many  stirring  military  incidents 
occurred.  Lovingly  and  lengthily  the  Auto- 
crat writes  of  this  house  in  A  Mortal  Antip- 
athy while  everyone  is  familiar  with  his  de- 
scription of  it  in  his  poem  Parson  TurrelVs 
Legacy. 

Know  old  Cambridge  ?    Hope  you  do  — 
Born  there?   Don't  say  so  !  I  was  too. 
(Bom  in  a  house  suit h  a  gambr  el-roof , — 
Standing  still,  if  you  must  have  proof . — 
"  Gambrel  ? —  Gambrel  f  " — Let  me  beg 
You'll  look  at  a  horse's  hinder  leg, — 
First  great  angle  above  the  hoof,— 
That's  the  gambrel ;  hence  gambrel-roof.) 

One  of  his  most  famous  poems,  "  Old  Iron- 
sides," was  written  here. 

Across  the  way  in  Garden  Street  is  the  his- 
toric old  Washington  elm  gazed  upon  with 
awe  by  Mr.  Pier's  pedagogues,  and  immortal- 

297 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 


Eighty  years  have  passed,  and  more 

Since  under  the  brave  old  tree 
Our  fathers  gathered  in  arms  and  swore 
They  would  follow  the  sign  their  banners  bore, 

And  fight  till  the  land  was  free." 

— Holmes's  "'Under  the  Washington  Elm, 


ized — like  so  much  else  of  the  old  town  which 
he  loved  —  by  the  Autocrat. 

298 


m       —    so 

is  J2  ■§  S 


in 


O     1)     (U 

OOH 


299 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

In  this  locality  lived  one  summer  two  of 
The  Pedagogues^  Jessie  and  Gorch,  in  a  square 
brown  house  in  which  they  had  taken  rooms. 
A  vine-screened  porch  extending  across  the 
front  of  the  house  became  the  sta^e  on  which 
much  of  this  serio-comic  story  was  played. 
The  Pedagogues  in  their  hours  of  recreation 
made  frequent  excursions  to  hallowed  scenes. 
We  find  them  plucking  sprigs  from  Longfel- 
low's hedcre  in  front  of  the  beautiful  old  man- 
sion  and  lingering  in  the  park  across  the  way 
—  the  field,  now  called  Longfellow's  garden,  a 
memorial  to  the  poet  who  during  his  lifetime 
kept  it  open  that  he  might  have  an  unobscured 
view  of  the  landscape  and  the  Charles  River, 
which  he  loved  and  which  winds  in  and  out  of 
so  much  of  his  verse. 

Thou  hast  taught  me,  Silent  River, 

Many  a  lesson  deep  and  long  ; 
Thou  hast  been  a  generous  giver  ; 

I  can  give  thee  but  a  song. 

Beyond  Longfellow's,  in  the  same  street,  is 
the  Brattle  house,  for  a  time  the  home  of  Mar- 

301 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 

garet  Fuller,  while  here  roomed  the  historian 
and  novelist  Motley  during  his  Harvard 
years. 

The  Pedagogues  also  made  pilgrimages  to 
Elmwood,  where,  we  are  told,  they  derived  a 
certain  satisfaction  from  peering  through  the 
fence  at  Lowell's  house.  From  here  they 
found  it  but  a  short  distance  to  Mount  Auburn 
for  a  spear  of  grass  from  Longfellow's  grave. 
Mr.  Sanderson  {The  Barclays  of  Boston)  was 
buried  in  Mount  Auburn,  where  he  reposed, 
the  novelist  says,  in  a  lowly  tomb  amid  bloom- 
ing flowers  and  cypress  trees.  In  Mr.  Bell- 
amy's Looking  Backward  we  have  a  picture  of 
this  beautiful  cemetery  on  Decoration  Day 
when  Julian  West  and  the  Bartletts  went  out 
there  from  Boston  to  "  do  honour  to  the  mem- 
ory of  the  soldiers  of  the  North  who  took  part 
in  the  war  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  of 
the  States.  The  survivors  of  the  war,  escorted 
by  military  and  civic  processions  and  bands  of 
music,  were  wont  on  this  occasion  to  visit  the 
cemeteries   and    lay  wreaths  of   flowers   upon 

302 


go 

1 

ft, 


3    s 


303 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

the  graves  of  their  dead  comrades,  the  cere- 
mony being  a  very  solemn  and  touching  one." 
The  beautiful  avenue  called  Massachusetts 
which  leads  out  from  Cambridge  through  Ar- 
lington to  Concord  is  richly  historic  and  of  in- 
terest to  the  fictional  rambler,  because  over  it 
marched  Lincoln,  Polvvorth  and  other  of  the  red- 
coats on  that  memorable  night  when,  far  ahead 
of  them,  Paul  Revere  was  spreading  the  alarm 

Through  every  Middlesex  village  and  farm 
For  the  country-folk  to  be  tip  and  to  arm, 
****** 

through  the  gloom  and  the  light, 
The  fate  of  a  nation  was  riding  that  night. 

Such  a  scene  appealed  strongly  to  the  im- 
agination of  Hawthorne,  who,  in  Septimus 
Felton,  tells  us  that  "  There  were  stories  of 
marching  troops  coming  like  dreams  through 
the  midnight.  Around  the  little  rude  meeting- 
houses  there  was  here  and  there  the  beat  of  a 
drum  and  the  assemblage  of  farmers  with 
their  weapons.  So  all  that  night  there  was 
marching,    there    was    mustering,    there    was 

3^5 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

trouble ;  and,  on  the  road  from  Boston,  a 
steady  march  of  soldiers'  feet  onward,  onward 
into  the  land  whose  last  warlike  disturbance 
had  been  when  the  red  Indians  trod  it." 

On  the  westward  road  along  which  the  red- 
coats marched  is  an  old  tavern  known  then 
and  now  as  the  Monroe  Tavern  —  the  head- 
quarters of  Lord  Percy. 

Hot  Percy  goad  his  slow  artillery 
Up  the  Concord  road, 

sings  Lowell.  This  tavern  is  described  by  Mr. 
Howells  in  his  volume  called  Three  Villages. 

On  Lexington  Common,  which  is  said  to  be 
as  high  as  the  top  of  Bunker  Hill,  Pitcairn's 
troop  encountered  the  minute-men,  and  Lionel 
Lincoln,  with  beating  heart,  heard  shouted  by 
his  major  : 

"  Disperse,  ye  rebels,  disperse.  Throw  down  your 
arms  and  disperse  !  " 

These  memorable  words  were  instantly  followed 
by  the  reports  of  pistols  and  the  fatal  mandate  of 
"Fire!"  when  a  loud  shout  arose  from  the  whole 
body  of  soldiery,  who  rushed  upon  the  open  green 
and  threw  in  a  close  discharge  on  all  before  them. 

306 


307 


3o8 


IN      AND      ABOUT      BOSTON 

"Great  God!"  exclaimed  Lionel,  "what  is  it  ye 
do?  Ye  fire  at  unoffending  men  !  Is  there  no  law 
but  force  ?  Beat  up  their  pieces,  Polworth ;  stop 
their  fire." 

"  Halt  !  "  cried  Polworth,  brandishing  his  sword 
fiercely  among  his  men.  "  Come  to  an  order,  or  I'll 
fell  ye  to  the  earth  !  " 

But  the  excitement  which  had  been  gathering  to  a 
head  for  so  many  hours,  and  the  animosity  which 
had  so  long  been  growing  between  the  troops  and 
the  people,  were  not  to  be  repressed  at  a  word.  It 
was  only  when  Pitcairn  himself  rode  in  among  the 
soldiers,  and,  aided  by  his  officers,  beat  down  their 
arms,  that  the  uproar  was  gradually  quelled,  and 
something  like  order  was  again  restored.  Before 
this  was  effected,  however,  a  few  scattering  shots 
were  thrown  back  from  their  flying  adversaries, 
though  without  material  injury  to  the  British. 

When  the  firing  had  ceased,  officers  and  men  stood 
gazing  at  one  another  for  a  few  moments,  as  if  even 
they  could  foresee  some  of  the  mighty  events  which 
were  to  follow  the  deeds  of  that  hour.  The  smoke 
slowly  arose,  like  a  lifted  veil,  from  the  green,  and, 
mingling  with  the  fogs  of  morning,  drove  heavily 
across  the  country,  as  if  to  communicate  the  fatal  in- 
telligence that  the  final  appeal  to  arms  had  been 
made.  Every  eye  was  bent  inquiringly  on  the  fatal 
green,  and  Lionel  beheld,  with  a  feeling  allied  to 
anguish,  a  few  men  at  a  distance  writhing  and  strug- 

309 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

gling  in  their  wounds,  while  some  five  or  six  bodies 
lay  stretched  upon  the  grass  in  the  appalling  quiet  of 
death.    Sickening  at  the  sight  he  turned  and  walked 


LEXINGTON    COMMON 

"  When  the  firing  had  ceased,  officers  and  men  stood  gazing  at  one 
another  as  if  even  they  could  foresee  some  of  the  mighty  events  which 
were  to  follow  the  deeds  of  that  hour." — Cooper  s  "Lionel  Lincoln." 

away  by  himself,  while  the  remainder  of  the  troops, 
alarmed  by  the  reports  of  the  arms,  were  eagerly 
pressing  up  from  the  rear  to  join  their  comrades. 

310 


THE   LEXINGTON   MINUTE   MAN 


3TI 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

A  granite  stone  marks  this  spot  to-day,  and 
nearby  is  Kitson's  spirited  statue  of  Captain 
John  Parker,  the  Minute-man  who  said  : 
"  Stand  your  ground.  Don't  fire  unless 
forced  upon.  But  if  they  mean  to  have  a  war, 
let  it  beein  here." 

Mr.  Howells  writes  sympathetically  of  Lex- 
ington village  —  a  little  too  far  from  Boston 
to  be  strictly  suburban  in  aspect  —  where,  he 
says,  the  local  feeling  is  larger  than  the  place. 
"As  Dr.  Holmes  has  remarked  (Howells's 
Three  Villages),  American  cities  and  villages 
like  to  think  of  themselves  as  the  '  good  old ' 
this  and  that  ;  but  at  Lexington,  more  than 
anywhere  else  out  of  Italy,  I  felt  that  the 
village  was  to  its  people  the patria" 

II.   HARVARD 

WHEN   we  consider  the    LIniversity's 
place  in  published  fiction,  how  small 
whatever  we  may  discern  is  in  com- 
parison with   the   vast  jungle   of    romance   it 
might  furnish,  if  its  yearly  inpouri ng   of  our 

313 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

youth  could  tell  us  of  their  hearts'  desires  and 
their  rainbow  castles ! 

Of  Harvard  in  its  infancy  we  learn  some- 
thing from  Penelope  Pelham  (Bynner's  Penel- 
ope s  Suitors),  who,  seeing  it  in  1638,  made 
note  of  it  in  her  journal  to  this  effect :  "  They 
have  here  set  up  a  small  school,  which  they 
call  a  college,  and  have  made  Herbert  treas- 
urer thereof."  About  fifty  years  later  Carew 
and  Courtney  (Stimson's  King  Noanctt),  jour- 
neying by  canoe  from  Boston  to  Springfield, 
stopped  at  Cambridge  to  buy  powder  and  then 
visited  the  college.  "  There  was  but  one 
building ;  and  on  entering  it  we  found  no  pro- 
fessors, but  some  eight  or  ten  young  fellows, 
and  these  were  all  the  students  ;  and  they 
were  sitting  around  smoking  tobacco,  with  the 
smoke  of  which  the  room  was  so  full  that  you 
could  hardly  see  ;  and  the  whole  house  smelt 
so  strong  of  it  that  when  I  was  going  up-stairs 
I  said,  '  This  is  certainly  a  tavern.'  They  could 
hardly  speak  a  word  of  Latin.  They  took  us 
to  the  library,  where  there  was  nothing  in  par- 

314 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

ticular.  .  .  .  Then  they  accompanied  us  down 
to  the  river  to  hail  us  off." 

In  one  of  his  novels  (A  Mortal  Antipathy) 
Holmes  comments  on  the  great  strides  the 
University  took  about  the  middle  of  the  last 
century.  "  During  all  my  early  years,"  he  says, 
"our  old  Harvard  Alma  Mater  sat  still  and 
lifeless  as  the  colossi  in  the  Egyptian  desert. 
Then  all  at  once,  like  the  statue  in  Don  Gio- 
vanni, she  moved  from  her  pedestal.  The  fall 
of  that  '  stony  foot '  has  effected  a  miracle  like 
the  harp  that  Orpheus  played,  like  the  teeth 
which  Cadmus  sowed.  The  plain  where  the 
moose  and  the  bear  were  wandering  while 
Shakespeare  was  writing  Hamlet,  where  a  few 
plain  dormitories  and  other  needed  buildings 
were  scattered  about  in  my  schoolboy  days, 
eroans  under  the  weight  of  the  massive  edi- 
fices  which  have  sprung  up  all  around  them." 

Many  of  the  Boston  novels  touch  upon 
Harvard  life,  notably  Mr.  Howells's  April 
Hopes,  Henry  James's  The  Bostonians  and 
Mr.    Pier's    The    Sentimentalists  ■     while    the 

315 


FICTIONAL      RAMBLES 

hero  of  Mr.  Wheelwright's  A  Child  of  the 
Century  wrought  for  many  years  to  obtain 
two  pieces  of  parchment,  which  entitled  him  to 
write  after  his  name,  "  Harvard,  A.B.,  LL.B." 
But  for  fiction  dealing  more  exclusively  with 
the  students  we  must  turn  to  the  pages  of 
Fair  Harvard,  Hammersmith,  Guemdale, 
and  more  recently  The  Prelude  and  the  Play, 
Harvard  Stories,  Harvard  Episodes,  The 
Diary  of  a  Freshman,  The  Pedagogues,  and 
those  two  capital  short  stories,  The  Colligo 
Club  Theatricals,  Warren's  The  Girl  and  the 
Governor  and  Owen  Wister's  Philosophy 
Four.  Polio's  Journey  to  Cambridge,  an 
amusing  satire  on  the  Rollo  Books,  should  not 
be  omitted  from  the  list. 

Fair  Harvard,  published  anonymously,  is 
considered  a  faithful  picture  of  life  at  the  Uni- 
versity in  the  fifties  and  had  a  great  vogue. 
So,  too,  had  Hammersmith  and  Guemdale, 
which  cover  a  somewhat  later  period,  x^ll 
three  of  these  novels  are  read  with  interest  to- 
day.      The   modern  Harvard  man  (^landrail 

316 


317 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

says  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  "  typical 
Harvard  man")  in  various  phases  we  find 
cleverly  portrayed  by  Charles  Macomb  Flan- 
drau  in  Harvard  Episodes  and  The  Diary  of 
a  Freshman;  similar  "  undergrads"  make  up 
Mr.  Post's  Harvard  Stories. 

When  "  Uncle  George  "  [Rollds  Journey  to 
Cambridge)  took  Rollo  to  the  University  he 
told  him  that  one  of  the  greatest  benefits  of  a 
course  at  Harvard  "  was  that  derived  from 
viewing  the  noble  architectural  specimens  all 
around  him."  And  though  it  was  not  intended 
Uncle  George  should  be  taken  seriously,  he 
undoubtedly  was  genuine  in  his  admiration  of 
buildings  which  are  famous,  and  about  which 
the  novelists  write  with  enthusiasm. 

The  rambler  who  would  seek  out  the  haunts 
of  fictional  students  would,  naturally  enough, 
upon  arriving  at  Harvard  Square  turn  toward 
the  Yard  as  the  beginning  of  his  tour  of  inves- 
tigation. Passing  through  one  of  the  beauti- 
ful memorial  gates  now  in  process  of  construc- 
tion, it  is  interesting  to  recall  that  at  the  time 

319 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

of  which  Henry  James  wrote  in  The  Bostoni- 
ans  the  Yard  was  enclosed  by  means  of  a  low 
rustic  fence,  "  for  Harvard,"  he  says,  "  knows 
nothing  either  of  the  jealousy  or  the  dignity 
of  high  walls  and  guarded  gateways."  This 
novelist  then  pictures  the  enclosure  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner  :  "  The  Yard  or  college  precinct 
is  traversed  by  a  number  of  straight  little 
paths  over  which,  at  certain  hours  of  the  dayv 
a  thousand  undergraduates  with  books  under 
their  arms  and  youth  in  their  step,  flit  from 
one  school  to  the  other.  The  rectangular 
structures  of  old  red  brick  wore  an  expression 
of  scholastic  quietude,  and  exhaled  a  tradition, 
an  antiquity." 

An  atmosphere  distinctly  Cantabrigian  we 
find  in  the  opening  chapters  of  a  recent  novel, 
The  Prelude  and  the  Play.  The  signature, 
Rufus  Mann,  is  supposed  to  be  the  pseudonym 
of  Mrs.  Shaler,  who,  as  the  wife  of  Professor 
Shaler,  is  well  qualified  to  know  whereof  she 
writes.  She  has  slightly  disguised  her  locality 
by  calling  the  town   Canterbury,   and  many  of 

320 


I 


321 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

her  characters  are  said  to  be  drawn  from  per- 
sons well  known  in  the  University  life.  But 
this  is  so  commonly  said  by  the  public  that 
authors  have  ceased  to  be  disturbed  by  it. 

Some  of  the  people  in  The  Prelude  and  the 
Play  lived,  we  imagine,  in  Ouincy  Street  about 
where  Professor  Shaler's  house  stands,  for  the 
view  the  author  describes  is  as  seen  from  his 
windows.  From  the  library  Alexandra,  the 
heroine,  "looked  out  upon  the  college  yard, 
which,  with  its  spires,  domes,  towers  and  dor- 
mitories, in  the  gray,  light,  soft,  enshrouding 
snow,  seemed  to  her  partial  fancy  to  wear  a 
look  of  stately  conventual  repose.  And  then, 
the  bell  ceasing  to  clang,  from  out  the  lecture 
rooms  crowds  of  men  poured  forth.  These, 
falling  more  or  less  into  professional  ranks, 
clad  in  long  ulsters  caused  her  to  think  of 
bands  of  Benedictine  monks  ;  only  the  frozen 
landscape  forbade  the  thought  of  cheering  vine- 
yards such  as  tradition  affixes  in  sunnier  lands 
to  the  monasteries  of  the  accomplished  order." 

All  the  buildings  connected  with  the  Uni- 
323 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

versity  were  shown  to  Ransom  by  Verena 
(The  Bostouians)  when  he  went  out  to  Cam- 
bridge to  see  her.  He  was  greatly  impressed 
by  the  Library,  "  a  diminished  copy  of  the 
chapel  of  King's  College  at  the  greater  Cam- 
bridge." This  is  the  library  to  which  Felton 
(Hawthorne's  Septimus  Fcltoii)  came  from 
Concord  in  search  of  scientific  books  relating 
to  his  studies.  Herrick,  in  his  story  The  Man 
Who  Wilis  also  alludes  to  it  in  speaking  of 
one  of  his  hero's  ancestors.  "  The  pastor's 
eloquence  waxed  into  books  that  are  found  to- 
day on  the  shelves  of  the  Harvard  library, 
with  the  University  book-plate  recording  their 
gift  by  the  author." 

Some  of  the  fictitious  students  are  eiven 
rooms  in  the  Yard,  while  as  many  others  are 
not.  Flandrau's  men  are  not  often  found 
living  there.  George  Talcott,  the  hero  of 
The  Prelude  and  the  Play,  roomed  in  the  Yard, 
but  the  author  does  not  tell  us  where  ;  Jack 
Randolph  {Harvard  Stories)  roomed  in 
Thayer  ;  his  windows,  we  are  told,  commanded 

324 


s 


Pd      <" 

K    'bo 


si 


325 


IN       AND       ABOU    I         BOS    I    ()  \ 

the  approaches  to  Appleton  Chapel,  about 
which  cluster  many  collect-  traditions,  in  and 
out  of  fiction. 

Some  Hammersmith  fellows,  Ayres  and  Van 
Courtland,  of  Fair  Harvard,  and  the  hero  of 
April  Hopes  lived  in  Holworthy  —  "that  old 
hall  that  keeps  its  favour  with  the  students  in 
spite  of  the  rivalry  of  the  newer  dormitories." 
Here  Mr.  Howells  shows  us  the  interior  of  a 
student's  room  :  "  the  deep  window  nooks  and 
easy  chairs  upholstered  in  the  leather  that 
seems  sacred  alike  to  the  seats  and  the  shelves 
of  libraries  ;  the  aesthetic  bookcases,  low  and 
topped  with  bric-a-brac  ;  the  etchings  and 
prints  on  the  walls  ;  the  foils  crossed  over  the 
chimney,  and  the  mantel  with  its  pipes, 
and  its  photographs  of  theatrical  celebrities 
tilted  about  over  it  —  spoke  of  conditions 
foreign  to  Mrs.  Pasmer's  memories  of  Har- 
vard." 

Conspicuous  in  Hammersmith  is  Harvard 
Hall,  "  with  its  portraits  of  placid  benefactors 
of  the  University   smiling  down  upon  many  a 

327 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

lad  floundering  in  an  ebbing  flood  of  classics, 
and  consuming  his  pencil  in  despair." 

Beside  Harvard  is  Massachusetts,  also  a  re- 
citation hall,  which,  like  Sever,  is  identified 
with  the  scenes  of  Mr.  Pier's  inimitable  novel 
The  Pedagogues,  wherein  he  presents  a  young 
instructor  wrestling  with  the  raw  (and  exas- 
perating) material  of  a  class  in  English  compo- 
sition and  literature  in  the  summer  school.  In 
and  about  these  halls  the  rambler  will  find  their 
prototypes  any  midsummer  day.  From  the 
South  and  West  come  most  of  these  actual 
students  —  gray-haired  women,  many  of  them, 
who  expect  their  instructors  —  to  quote  Mr. 
Pier,  "  in  six  short  weeks  to  purge  them  of 
provinciality,  to  give  them  a  catholic  appre- 
ciation of  literature,  to  instruct  them  in  new 
methods  of  teaching,  and  to  teach  them  to 
write  —  to  write  —  to  write.  .  .  '  My  object  in 
coming  here  '  "  (said  a  fictitious  one,  and  it  is 
the  sentiment  of  most  of  the  actual  students) 
"  '  is  to  learn  to  be  a  writer  of  fiction,  preferably 
strong  and  passionate.      I  am  familiar  with  the 

3?s 


* 


■5  I 


329 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

works  of  Shakespeare,  Byron,  Ouida  and  E. 
1\  Roe.  I  know  no  other  language  than  my 
own. 

It  has  been  conjectured  that  the  experiences 
of  the  most  satirical  of  instructors,  Alfred 
Honore  Palantine,  were  those  of  his  creator, 
Mr.  Pier.  This,  however,  is  not  the  case,  as 
Mr.  Pier,  though  a  Harvard  man,  never  taught 
there. 

Between  Massachusetts  and  Harvard  Halls 
is  the  Tree  so  prominent  in  all  the  Class-day 
festivities,  and  to  which  full  justice  has  been 
done  by  all  the  fictionists  who  find  this  fete 
day  an  inspiring  theme.  "  What  short  descrip- 
tion can  do  justice  to  it !  "  exclaims  the  author 
of  Hammersmith,  and  Mr.  Howells,  in  a  suc- 
cession of  charming  photographs,  devotes  to  it 
the  first  seven  chapters  of  April  Hopes.  One 
of  Mr.  Flandrau's  characters,  Beverly  Beverly 
(A  Class  Day  Idyl),  has  a  class-day  unique, 
we  imagine,  in  college  annals. 

In  continuing  through  the  Yard  on  our  way 
to  Memorial  Hall,  we  pass  the  College  Pump, 

331 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

"in  warm  weather,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  one 
of  the  hardest-worked  of  all  the  college  belong- 
ings." It  is  affectionately  alluded  to  by  the 
novelists,  and  we  half  expect  to  find  Hammer- 
smith's face  under  its  mouth,  "where  he  had 
cooled  his  lips  so  many  times,  rushing  in  from 
cricket,  or  football,  or  rapid  constitutional,  just 
in  time  for  recitation." 

Passing  out  through  the  Yard  to  Cambridge 
Street  we  come  to  Memorial  Hall,  elaborately 
described  and  scenically  used  in  all  the  stories 
pertaining  to  Harvard  life.  In  writing  of  the 
impression  that  this  building  made  on  his  Mis- 
sissippian  hero  of  The  Bostonians,  Henry  James 
says  :  H  The  Hall  was  buttressed,  cloistered, 
turreted,  dedicated,  superscribed,  as  he  had 
never  seen  anything  ;  though  it  didn't  look 
old,  it  looked  significant ;  it  covered  a  larofe 
area,  and  it  sprang  majestic  into  the  winter  air. 
It  was  detached  from  the  rest  of  the  collegiate 
group,  and  stood  in  a  grassy  triangle  of  its 
own." 

Here,  in  Sander's  Theatre,  fictional  heroes 
332 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

deliver  their  orations  and  receive  their  degrees, 
while  Memorial  itself  on  Class-day  becomes 
the  scene  of  gay  festivities  in  the  way  of 
spreads  and  dances.  This  Hall  was  erected  in 
memory  of  the  sons  of  Harvard  who  died 
during  the  civil  war.  In  Hammersmith  we 
are  given  pictures  of  those  stirring  times  when 
the  students  went  off  to  the  front  amid  the 
cheers  and  blessings  of  their  classmates.  At 
the  end  of  this  novel  the  author,  writing  in 
1877,  says:  "Yonder  Memorial  Hall  has  writ- 
ten the  names  of  some  on  its  immortal  tablets, 
where  the  thronging  youth  of  to-day,  who  come 
up  annually  to  the  old  university,  may  read 
the  bright  record  and  the  brightening  names. 
The  lives  of  these  will  not  have  been  in  vain 
if  they  shall  teach  their  successors  in  the 
happy  college  walks  and  ways,  consecrated 
by  their  heroic  feet,  that  courage,  high  dar- 
ing, devoted  sacrifice  of  self,  are  not  alone 
to  be  admired  amon^  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans." 

How  some  of  these  ''  successors  "  of   Ham- 
333 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

mersmith  and  his  friends  feel  about  the  beau- 
tiful Hall  is  suggested  with  exquisite  feeling 
by  Mr.  Flandrau  in  his  story  Wellington. 
Hay  dock,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  taking 
his  mother  into  Memorial. 

The  beautiful  transept  was  dark  at  first,  after  the 
sunlight  outside.  Then  it  lifted  straight  and  high 
from  the  cool  dusk  into  the  quiet  light  of  the 
stained  windows.  Except  for  the  faint  echo  of 
their  footsteps  along  the  marble  floor,  the  two 
moved  from  tablet  to  tablet  in  silence.  Somewhere 
near  the  south  door  they  stopped,  and  Phillip  said, 
simply : 

"This  one  is  Shaw's." 

When  they  passed  on  and  out,  and  sat  in  the  shade 
on  the  steps,  Haydock's  mother  wiped  her  eyes. 
The  long,  silent  roll-call  always  made  her  do  that. 

"  It  was  a  great,  great  price  to  pay,"  she  said  at 
last. 

"I  never  knew  how  great,"  said  Phillip,  w  until  I 
came  here  one  day  and  tried  to  live  it  all  over,  as  if 
it  were  happening  now.  Before  then  the  war  seemed 
fine,  and  historic,  and  all  that,  but  ever  so  far  away. 
It's  been  real  since  then.  I  thought  of  how  all  the 
little  groups  of  fellows  would  talk  about  it  in  the 
Yard  between  lectures,  and  read  the  morning  papers 
while  the  lectures  were  going  on  ;  and  how  the  in- 
structors would  hate  to  have  to  tell  them  not  to. 

334 


S    V. 


u   5 


7,^ 


S 


335 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

And  I  thought  what  it  would  be  like  to  have 
the  men  I  know  .  .  .  getting  restless  and  excited,  and 
sitting  up  all  night  at  the  club,  and  then  throwing 
down  their  books  and  marching  away  to  the  front  to 
be  shot ;  and  how  I  would  have  to  go  along,  too,  be- 
cause—  well,  you  couldn't  stay  at  home  while  they 
were  being  shot  every  day  and  thrown  into  trenches. 
I  don't  think  you  ever  realize  it  very  much  until  you 
think  about  it  that  way.  .  .  .  But  it  isn't  as  though 
you  felt  it  were  all  a  hideous  waste.  It  did  some- 
thing great ;  it's  doing  something  now.  It  can  never 
stop,  for  every  year  the  new  ones  come  —  the  ones 
who  don't  know  yet." 

Strolling  from  Memorial  down  Kirtland  we 
come  to  Divinity  Avenue,  at  the  end  of  which 
is  Divinity  Hall,  where  Saulsbury  and  Hamil- 
ton (Fair  Harvard}  lived,  "in  secure  retreat 
from  the  world,  devoting  themselves  to  study  in 
monastic  seclusion.  .  .  .  Divinity  Hall  was  built 
at  a  time  when  funereal  gloom  was  deemed 
essential  for  the  perfect  development  of  the 
Christian  character."  Verena  Tarrent  (The 
Bostonians)  knew  young  men  who  were  study- 
ing for  the  Unitarian  ministry  in  that  "queer 
little  barrack  at  the  end  of  Divinity  Avenue.' 

337 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

From  here  we  retrace  our  steps  across  the 
Yard  to  the  Square  and  thence  down  Lin- 
den Street  to  the  corner  of  Mount  Auburn, 
where  we  find  Claverly,  in  which  lived  Sears 
Walcott  2nd,  Haydock,  Fields,  Hewitt  and 
other  of  the  men  of  Mr.  Flandrau's  Harvard 
Episodes.  Many  events  —  comedy  and  tragedy 
intermingled  —  occurred  in  Claverly,  among 
these  men  who  are  clever  pen  portraits  of  the 
Harvard  men  of  to-day.  This  hedonist  deals 
frankly  with  the  varying  aspects  of  Harvard 
life  about  which,  as  presented  by  him,  the  un- 
initiated will  learn  much,  particularly  from  the 
discussion  which  takes  place  in  that  story 
called  The  Chance: 

Around  the  corner  from  Claverly  in  Holyoke 
Street  is  the  Hasty  Pudding  Club  House,  the 
scene  of  one  of  Mr.  Post's  Harvard  stories  — 
In  the  Early  Sixties.  At  this  club  house 
Beverly  Beverly  (Flandrau's  The  Class  Day 
Idyl)  spent  a  wretched  quarter  of  an  hour  en- 
deavouring to  escape  from  his  ridiculous  en- 
tanglement with  that  clinging  tormentor,  "  the 

33S 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Millstone."  Hammersmith  and  Goldie  were 
Pudding  men  in  the  days  when  the  club  rooms 
were  in  Stoughton  Hall,  up  the  stairway  of 
which  "  legions  of  trembling  neophytes  have 
climbed  before  and  since." 

III.  WESTWARD 

FROM  Beacon  Street  in  Boston,  extend- 
ing westward,  some  fifteen  years  or  more 
ago,  was  a  famous  road  called  the  Mill- 
dam  (now  the  Beacon  Street  Boulevard), 
where  lovers  of  horseflesh  were  wont  to  display 
the  points  of  their  favourites  and  fast  trotting 
was  the  order  of  the  day.  During  the  winter, 
in  the  sleighing  season,  it  became  what  Bartley 
Hubbard  (Howells's  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lap- 
ham)  called  a  carnival  of  fashion  and  gaiety 
on  the  Brighton  road  to  make  a  part  of  which 
was  one  of  the  keenest  enjoyments  of  Colonel 
Lapham.  Not  that  the  "carnival  of  fashion" 
appealed  to  him,  but  the  excitement  of  speed- 
ing his  mare  was  a  sensation  of  which  he  never 
wearied. 

339 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

The  Milldam  of  those  days  is  thuspictured  for 
us  by  the  novelist :  "The  beautiful  landscape 
widened  to  right  and  left  of  them,  with  the  sun- 
set redder  and  redder,  over  the  low  irregular 
hills  before  them.  They  crossed  the  Milldam 
into  Longwood  ;  and  here,  from  the  crest  of 
the  first  upland,  stretched  two  endless  lines,  in 
which  thousands  of  cutters  came  and  went. 
Some  of  the  drivers  were  already  speeding 
their  horses,  and  these  shot  to  and  fro  on  inner 
lines,  between  the  slowly  moving  vehicles  on 
either  side  of  the  road.  .  .  But  most  of  the 
people  in  those  elegant  sleighs  and  cutters  had 
so  little  the  air  of  the  great  world  that  one 
knowing  it  at  all  must  have  wondered  where 
they  and  their  money  came  from  ;  and  the 
gaiety  of  the  men,  at  least,  was  expressed,  like 
that  of  Colonel  Lapham,  in  a  grim,  almost 
fierce  alertness  ;  the  women  wore  an  air  of  cou- 
rageous apprehension.  At  a  certain  point  the 
Colonel  said,  '  I'm  going  to  let  her  out,  Pert,' 
and  he  lifted  and  then  dropped  the  reins  lightly 
on  the  mare's  back.    She  understood  the  signal 

340 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

and,  as  an  admirer  said,  'she  laid  down  to  her 
work.'  Nothing  in  the  immutable  iron  of  Lap- 
ham's  face  betrayed  his  sense  of  triumph  as  the 
mare  left  everything  behind  her  on  the  road. 
Mrs.  Lapham,  if  she  felt  fear,  was  too  busy 
holding  her  flying  wraps  about  her,  and  shield- 
her  face  from  the  scud  of  ice  flungr  from  the 
mare's  heels  to  betray  it ;  except  for  the  rush 
of  her  feet,  the  mare  was  as  silent  as  the  peo- 
ple behind  her;  the  muscles  of  her  back  and 
thighs  worked  more  and  more  swiftly,  like  some 
mechanism  responding  to  an  alien  force,  and 
she  shot  to  the  end  of  the  course,  grazing  a 
hundred  encountered  and  rival  sledges  in  her 
passage,  but  unmolested  by  the  policemen, 
who  probably  saw  that  the  mare  and  the  Colo- 
nel knew  what  they  were  about,  and,  at  any 
rate,  were  not  the  sort  of  men  to  interfere  with 
trotting-  like  that.  At  the  end  of  the  heat 
Lapham  drew  her  in,  and  turned  off  on  a  side 
street  into  Brookline." 

The  Colonel  was  then  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
present  Country  Club,  built  since  his  day   in 

341 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Brookline,  and  the  scene  of  much  of  Arlo 
Bates's  Love  in  a  Cloud.  Here  the  inconse- 
quential Jack  Neligage —  one  of  the  few  men  in 
Boston,  the  novelist  says,  entirely  free  from  any 


COUNTRY    CLUB,   BROOKLINE 

"  Before  the  front  of  the  house  was  a  sloping  lawn  which  merged 
into  an  open  park,  here  and  there  dotted  with  groups  of  budding 
trees." — Arlo  Bates's  "Love  hi  a  Cloud." 


weakness  in  the  way  of  occupation  beyond  that 
of  pleasure-seeking — played  polo,  a  game  in 
which  he  excelled.  All  the  characters  in  this 
novel  were  polo  enthusiasts  or  pretended  to  be ! 
and  the  Country  Club,  dubbed  by  Mr.  Bates 
"  County    Club,"    during    the  weeks    of  early 

342 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

spring  was  a  popular  rendezvous.  "  The  exhil- 
aration of  the  spring  day,  the  pleasure  of  tak- 
ing up  once  more  the  outdoor  life  of  the  warm 
season,  the  little  excitement  which  belongs  to 
the  assemblage  of  merry-makers,  the  chatter, 
the  laughter,  all  the  gay  bustle  combined  to  fill 
the  County  Club  with  a  joyous  atmosphere." 
Brookline,  the  most  aristocratic  and  by  many 
regarded  as  the  most  beautiful  of  the  environs 
of  Boston,  was  the  home  of  that  mysterious 
and  unique  individual  Mr.  Austin  May  (Stim- 
son's  Residuary  Legatee),  who,  driving  to  his 
house  on  his  arrival  from  Europe,  noted  that 
"the  road  was  walled  in  and  roofed  over  by  a 
dense  canopy  of  foliage  borne  by  arching 
American  elms ;  and  through  its  green  walls, 
dense  as  a  lane  in  Jersey,  only  momentary 
glimpses  were  to  be  had  of  shaven  lawns  and 
quiet  country  houses.  When  they  came  to  a 
gate,  with  high  stone  posts,  topped  by  an 
ancient  pair  of  cannon  balls,  the  carryall  turned 
in.  A  moment  after  they  had  passed  the 
screen  of  border  foliage,  May  found  himself  in 

343 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

the  midst  of  a  wide  lawn,  open  to  the  sunlight, 
but  rimmed  upon  all  points  of  the  compass  by 
a  distant  hedge  of  trees.  .  .  In  the  centre  of 
this  stood  an  elderly  brick  house,  its  southern 
wall  quite  green  with  ivy.  In  front  of  it  was  a 
large  pavilion  low  and  stone  built,  rising  with- 
out apparent  purpose  from  the  side  of  an  ar- 
tificial pool  of  water,  rimmed  with  rich  bands 
of  lilies."  How  Austin  May  and  May  Austin 
came  to  dwell  together  in  the  old  ivy-covered 
house,  must  be  left  to  the  novelist  to  tell.  Un- 
fortunately in  the  book  he  does  not  aid  us 
by  mention  of  exact  locality  to  identify  the 
house,  yet  he  assures  us  that  if  we  drive  by 
there,  some  summer  afternoon,  we  will  "  note 
about  the  windows  those  frilled  and  pleated 
things  that  denote  the  presence  of  a  woman's 
hand." 

Out  through  these  country  roads  tramped 
Dan,  led  by  Walter  (Miss  Frothingham's  The 
Turn  of  the  Road)  on  that  hideous  night  when 
he  went  blind.  "  He  was  maddened  with 
physical    pain  that  did  not  subside   with    the 

344 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

loss  of  sight,  and  after  the  long  strain  of 
sleepless  nights  and  mental  anguish  his  nerves 
had  given  way.       He  lurched   heavily  in  walk- 


THE    UPPER    CHARLES     RIVER 

"where  the  reflections  of  its  wooded  banks 
and  circuitous  loveliness  remind  one  of  the 
Thames  above  Richmond." — Margaret  All- 
stons  "Her  Boston  Experiences" 

ing,  and  blamed  Walter  for  letting  him  stum- 
ble, and  there  were  terrible  times  when  he 
fought  for  the  light  with  his  hands,  as  a  drown- 
ing man  fights  for  air.  At  those  moments 
Walter  held  him  with  all  his  strength  and  with 

345 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

a  prayer  on  his  lip.  The  night  seemed  an 
aeon  of  chaotic  and  hideous  darkness.  It  was 
not  till  the  East  grew  pale  that  Dan  allowed 
himself  to  be  forced  upon  a  bench,  and,  leaning 
his  head  against  a  tree  behind  him,  fell  into 
the  unconsciousness  of  utter  exhaustion." 

Beyond  the  scene  of  this  tragedy  lie  the 
Newtons  (called  the  Garden  City)  where  the 
beautiful  Charles  and  a  large  canoe  club  fur- 
nish  boating  for  hundreds  of  pleasure-seekers. 
There  Margaret  Alston  {Her  Boston  Experi- 
ences) canoed  on  the  upper  Charles,  "where 
the  reflections  of  its  wooded  banks  and  cir- 
cuitous loveliness  remind  one  of  the  Thames 
above  Richmond." 

IV.    TOWARD  THE   BLUE  HILLS 

HAVING  raced  over  the  Milldam  with 
Silas  Lapham,  an  exhilarating  sleigh- 
ride  in  another  direction  is  open  to 
those  who  will   drive  with  Craighead  and  his 
wife  {Truth  Dexter}  "through  Boston's  circle 
of  clinging  parks,  Jamaica  Plain,  Dedham  and 

346 


IN       AND       ABOUT        BOS  T  ()  N 

Milton,  embracing  the  lofty  ledges  of  the  Blue 
Hills  and  the  heights  of  Dorchester,  where 
Washington  had  erected  his  decisive  batteries. 
.  .  .  Truth  felt  new  life  tingle  in  her  veins  as 
she  and  her  husband  sped  along  the  shining, 
slippery  roads,  the  black  span  under  Van's 
masterly  control  gradually  passing  every  rival 
equipage,  and  the  keen  sleigh  rails  throwing 
showers  of  hardened  snow  into  the  air  at 
every  turn  or  swerve." 

The  heights  of  Dorchester  which  they 
passed  homeward  bound  are  identified  with 
Cooper's  Lionel  Lincoln,  who,  with  Cecil, 
aided  by  Ralph,  escaped  from  here  to  Boston 
under  the  fire  of  Washington's  batteries. 
"  Ralph  led  his  companions  by  a  long  and 
circuitous  path  to  the  shores  of  the  bay.  Here 
they  found,  hid  in  the  rushes  of  a  shallow  inlet, 
a  small  boat  that  Lionel  recognized  as  the  lit- 
tle vessel  in  which  Job  Pray  was  wont  to  pur- 
sue his  usual  avocation  of  a  fisherman.  Enter- 
ing it  without  delay,  he  seized  the  oars,  and 
aided  by  a  flowing  tide,  he  industriously  urged 

347 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

it  towards  the  distant  spires  of  Boston.  The 
parting-  shades  of  the  night  were  yet  struggling 
with  the  advance  of  day,  when  a  powerful  flash 
of  light  illuminated  the  hazy  horizon,  and  the 
roar  of  cannon,  which  had  ceased  toward 
morning,  was  heard  again.  But  this  time  the 
sound  came  from  the  water,  and  a  cloud  arose 
above  the  smoking  harbour,  announcing  that 
the  ships  were  again  enlisted  in  the  contest. 
This  sudden  cannonade  induced  Lionel  to  steer 
his  boat  between  the  islands  ;  for  the  castle  and 
southern  batteries  of  the  town  were  all  soon 
united  in  pouring  out  their  vengeance  on  the 
labourers,  who  still  occupied  the  heights  of 
Dorchester.  .  .  In  short,  while  he  laboured  at 
the  oars,  Lionel  witnessed  the  opening  scene  of 
Breed's  acted  anew,  as  battery  after  battery, 
and  ship  after  ship,  brought  their  guns  to  bear 
on  their  hardy  countrymen,  who  had  once 
more  hastened  a  crisis  by  their  daring  enter- 
prise." 

Dorchester  is  commonly  known  as  the  pud- 
ding-stone district  because  of  the  vast  amount 

348 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

of  loose  boulder  cast  about.  The  legends  of 
the  pudding-stone  are  legion.  The  Autocrat 
gives  one,  and  his  version  of  it  in  a  poem 
called  "The  Dorchester  Giant"  in  which  his 
inimitable  humour  has  full  sway.  He  says  that 
a  giant  of  old  gave  to  his  wife  and  children  a 
pudding  stuffed  with  plums  which  in  their 
rage  they  flung  over  all  the  country  round 
about : 

Giant  and  mammoth  have  passed  away. 

For  ages  have  floated  by  ; 
The  suet  is  hard  as  a  marrow-bone, 
And  every  plum  is  turned  to  a  stone, 

But  there  the  puddings  lie. 

Atzd  if  some  pleasant  afternoon, 

You'll  ask  me  out  to  ride. 
The  whole  of  the  story  I  will  tell. 
And  you  shall  see  where  the  puddings  fell 
And  pay  for  the  punch  beside. 

In  Roxbury,  which  adjoins  Dorchester, 
is  standing  in  Eustis  Street  what  remains 
of  the  stately  old  mansion  which,  nearly  a 
century  and  a  half  ago,  was  the  abode  of 
Governor    Shirley,     one     of    the     most    dis- 

349 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

tinguished  ot  the  royal  governors.  Then  it 
stood  remote  from  the  highway  with  a  com- 
manding view  of  the  sea,  the  distant  town  and 
surrounding  country,  perched  upon  its  granite 
foundation,  and  approached  by  an  impossible 
flight  of  granite  steps.  Here  many  of  the 
scenes  of  the  earlier  chapters  of  Bynner's 
Agnes  Surriage  transpire.  Mrs.  Shirley,  a 
most  gracious  woman,  interested  herself  in 
Frankland's  protegee  from  the  beginning  and 
gave  her  at  once  the  inestimable  advantage  of 
her  patronage.  After  the  "  bare-legged  dis- 
hevelled little  hussev "  had  taken  on  some 
polish  we  have  in  the  novel  a  charming  account 
of  a  musical  party  here  when  Agnes  was  per- 
suaded to  sing-  several  ballads  to  her  own  ac- 
companiment  on  the  harpsichord.  "  Even  Mrs. 
Shirley  and  the  Collector,  who  were  aware  of 
her  vocal  powers,  were  astonished  at  the  per- 
formance ;  while  as  for  Captain  Frankland, 
who  shared  his  brother's  musical  taste,  it 
was  noted  that  for  the  rest  of  the  evening 
he    did    not    quit    the    singer's    side,    and    on 

350 


S       O    £0 
CO      —  ,vi 


c  r-o 


35i 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

breaking  up  was  a  long  time  in  making  his 
adieux." 

Thou  eh  Kingfshaven  in  Eliza  Orne  White's 
Miss  Brooks,  is  not  intended  to  be  Roxbury, 
yet  here  is  the  beautiful  old-fashioned  garden 
described  as  the  Brookses  where  the  family 
spent  so  much  time,  Janet  particularly.  And 
there,  one  beautiful  moonlight  night,  Graham 
found  her  sobbing  her  heart  out.  "  The  garden 
had  an  aspect  of  romance  and  mystery  in  this 
half  light  in  striking  contrast  to  its  appearance 
under  a  midday  sun.  The  carnations  and  the 
late  roses  were  etherealized,  and  a  tall  bush 
with  a  feathery  white  flower  made  a  delicate 
frost-work  with  its  graceful  branches.  There 
was  a  touch  of  foe  in  the  air  which  broueht 
out  a  mixture  of  sweet  odours." 

Beyond  Roxbury  is  Jamaica  Plain,  where 
Mrs.  Sam  Wyndham  (Crawford's  American 
Politician)  gave  her  skating  party  on  Jamaica 
Pond.  "  The  water  was  covered  with  a  broad 
sheet  of  ice  that  would  bear  any  weight.  .  .  . 
Two  and  two,  in  a  certain  grace  of  order,  the 

353 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

little  party  came  out  from  the  shore  into  the 
moonlight.  A  very  pretty  sight  is  a  moonlight 
skating  party,  and  Vancouver  knew  what  he 
was  saying  when  he  hinted  at  the  mysterious 
and  romantic  influences  that  are  likely  to  be 


»h^>:  ^"fliBTr'Ty 


*&#  * 


JAMAICA    POND 

" — the  water  was  covered  with  a  broad  sheet  of  ice  that  would 
bear  any  weight.'' — Crawford' s  "An  American  Politician." 

abroad  on  such  occasions."  Mr.  Crawford 
comments  on  the  fact  that  skating-  was  not  at 
that  time  fashionable  in  Boston,  so  that  the 
Wyndham  party  had  the  pond  practically  to 
themselves.  This  would  not  be  their  expe- 
rience to-day,  when  all  during  the  skating  sea- 
son it  is  crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity,  day 
and  evening. 

354 


355 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Keeping  on  toward  the  Blue  Hills  we  come 
to  Wallaston,  a  part  of  Ouincyand  of  fictional 
interest  because  here  is  Mount  Wallaston,  the 
scene  of  the  revels  of  Hawthorne's  Maypole 
of  Merrymount  and  of  Motley's  Merry  mount, 
the  latter  story  being  one  of  the  two  novels 
written  by  the  historian. 

About  1628  one  Captain  Wallaston  had 
planted  himself  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
hill,  which  still  perpetuates  his  name.  Thomas 
Morton,  the  wily,  overthrew  him  and  made 
himself  Lord  of  Merry-Mount,  as  he  named 
the  place.  Says  the  novelist :  "  The  crepuscu- 
lar period  which  immediately  preceded  the  rise 
of  the  Massachusetts  Colony  possesses  more 
of  the  elements  of  romance  than  any  sub- 
sequent epoch.  After  the  arrival  of  Winthrop 
with  the  charter,  the  history  of  the  province  is 
as  clear  as  daylight,  but  during  the  few  previ- 
ous years  there  are  several  characters  flitting 
like  phantoms  through  the  chronicles  of  the 
time  the  singularity  of  whose  appearance 
gives  them  a  certain  romantic  interest."     Such 

357 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

a  character  is  Motley's  hero,  Morton,  the  Lord 
of  Misrule  and  Sachem  of  Merrymount,  who  is 
also  the  hero  of  Hawthorne's  story,  The  May- 
pole of  Merry  Mount. 

In  this  tale,  written  before  Motley's  novel, 
but  which,  the  novelist  -  historian  tells  us,  he 
took  pains  never  to  read,  Hawthorne  has 
painted  for  us  fantastic  facts  without  need  to 
draw  upon  his  wealth  of  imagery.  The  masques, 
mummeries  and  festive  customs  which  made 
the  revels  of  the  nuptials  of  the  Lord  and 
Lady  of  the  May  as  he  describes  them,  were 
in  accordance  with  the  manners  of  the  aee. 
"All  the  hereditary  pastimes  of  old  England 
were  transplanted  hither,"  he  tells  us.  "  The 
King  of  Christmas  was  duly  crowned,  and  the 
Lord  of  Misrule  bore  potent  sway.  On  the 
eve  of  St.  John  they  felled  whole  acres  of  the 
forest  to  make  bonfires,  and  danced  by  the 
blaze  all  night,  crowned  with  garlands  and 
throwing  flowers  into  the  flame.  At  harvest- 
time,  though  their  crop  was  of  the  smallest, 
they    made    an    image    with    the    sheaves    of 

353 


359 


IN       AND       ABOUT        BOSTON 

Indian  corn  and  wreathed  it  with  autumnal 
garlands,  and  bore  it  home  triumphantly. 
But  what  chiefly  characterized  the  colonists  of 
Merry  Mount  was  their  veneration  for  the 
Maypole.  It  has  made  their  true  history  a 
poet's  tale.  Spring  decked  the  hallowed  em- 
blem with  young  blossoms  and  fresh  green 
boughs;  summer  brought  roses  of  the  deepest 
blush,  and  the  perfected  foliage  of  the  forest ; 
autumn  enriched  it  with  that  red  and  yellow 
gorgeousness,  which  converts  each  wildwood 
leaf  into  a  painted  flower  ;  and  winter  silvered 
it  with  sleet,  and  hung  it  round  with  icicles  till 
it  flashed  in  the  cold  sunshine,  itself  a  frozen 
sunbeam.  Thus  each  alternate  season  did 
homage  to  the  maypole,  and  paid  it  a  tribute 
of  its  own  richest  splendour.  Its  votaries  danced 
round  it,  once,  at  least,  in  every  month  ;  some- 
times they  called  it  their  religion,  or  their  altar  ; 
but  always,  it  was  the  banner  staff  of  Merry 
Mount  " 

In  Ouincy,  of  which  Wallaston  is  a  part,  is  a 
pleasure-ground  called   Merrymount,  after  the 

361 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

home  of  the  Lord  of  Misrule;  but  to  the 
fictional  rambler  Ouincy's  most  interesting 
landmark  is  the  historic  Ouincy-Butler  man- 
sion, haunted  by  memories  of  the  bewitching 
Agnes  Surriage,  one  of  the  gayest  of  the 
guests  in  a  "  country  excursion  to  Mr.  Ouincy's, 
where  the  whole  party  with  much  merriment 
took  part  in  catching  eels  they  were  to  have 
cooked  for  supper  from  the  brook  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  garden."  Like  the  house  the  brook 
is  still  there,  and  beside  it  many  times,  no 
doubt,  sat  the  celebrated  "  Dorothy  Q.,"  who 
was  born  in  the  mansion.  She,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  was  the  great-grandmother  of  the  Auto- 
crat who,  justly  proud  of  her,  has  added  to 
her  laurels  by  this  poem  dedicated  to  her 
portrait  : 

Dorothy  Q.  was  a  lady  bom  I 
Ay  !  since  the  galloping  Normans  came 
England 's  annals  have  known  her  name  ; 
And  still  to  the  three-hilled  rebel  town 
Dear  is  that  ancient  name's  renown  ; 
For  many  a  civic  wreath  they  won, 
The  youthful  sire  and  the  grey-haired  son. 
362 


3^3 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

Farther  on  toward  the  Blue  Hills  we  find 
Dedham.  "And  this  (Stimson's  King  Noa~ 
nett)  was  the  settlement  they  called  Content- 
ment, for  the  Bay  people  were  fond  of  fine 
names,  taken  from  the  Bible  or  their  books  of 
Psalms."  Most  of  this  country  (about  1670) 
was  then  a  wilderness  and  the  adventures  of 
Carew  and  Courtenay,  in  their  endeavour  to 
make  a  home,  and  their  encounters  with  the 
Indians,  make  a  stirring  and  romantic  picture 
of  times  little  known  to  the  fiction  reader  until 
Mr.  Stimson  created  King  Noanett. 

V.   NAHANT  AND  NANTASKET" 

OF  the  many  shore  places  about  Boston 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  exclu- 
sive is  Nahant,  on  the  north  shore, 
an  island  but  for  the  narrow  strip  of  land  that 
connects  it  with  Lynn.  "  Cold  roast  Boston," 
it  was  named  by  "  Tom  "  Appleton,  celebrated 
as  a  wit  of  the  Hub.  "Tom"  Appleton  has 
been  gathered  to  his  fathers,  but  his  nickname 
still   clings.      In    Truth    Dexter,    the    novelist 

365 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

tells  us  that  Craighead  was  most  anxious  to 
send  his  wife  down  there  when  the  warm 
weather  came  on,  but  "  Truth  feared  the  pen- 
insular resort,  having  heard  it  spoken  of  by 
epicures  as  'cold  roast  Boston.'" 

In  this  aristocratic  atmosphere  it  is  natural 


"  At  the  foot  of  the  lawn  was  the  cliff  ;  and  below,  a  lovely  little 
pebble  beach  covered  with  the  most  wonderful  shells." — Stimsons 
"Pirate  Gold," 

to  find  old  Mr.  Bowdoin  (Stimson's  Pirate 
Gold)  spending  his  summers,  and  it  is  interest- 
ing to  learn  that  these  summers  and  all  the 
happy  days  in  them  he  made  for  the  children 
are  described  in  the  novel  as  they  actually  oc- 
curred in  the  life  of  Mr.  Bowdoin's  prototype, 
Mr.  Josiah  Bradlee.  Mercedes,  "who  came 
from  the   sea,"   never  forgot   those    visits    to 

366 


IN       AND      ABOUT       BOSTON 

Nahant,  when,  as  the  steamer  readied  the 
wharf,  Mr.  Bowdoin  could  be  seen  usually  **  run- 
ning down  the  hill  as  if  too  late,  his  blue  dress 
coat  tails  streaming  in  the  wind,  his  Panama 
hat  in  one  hand,  and  a  large  brown  paper 
bag,  bursting  with  oranges,  in  the  other." 
In  his  capacious  pockets  the  children  were 
sure  to  find  Salem  "  Gibraltars,"  hard  and 
mouth-filling  dainties  calculated  to  fill  in- 
fantile mouths  even  as  they  did  the  hearts 
with  joy. 

When  the  little  visitors  arrived  at  the  house 
they  were  sent  out  to  play  on  "a  fascinating 
rocky  island  in  the  sea,  connected  by  a  neck  of 
twenty  yards  of  pebbles  "  where  they  made  the 
most  wonderful  discoveries.  Real  candy 
crystals,  pink  and  white,  had  been  washed  into 
the  rocky  crevices  !  Real  bunches  of  hot  house 
grapes  grew  on  the  low  juniper  bushes  !  Real 
peg  tops  and  beautiful,  rare  shells  were  to  be 
found  among  the  seaweed  on  the  tiny  beach  ! 
Verily  a  good  fairy  was  that  old  gentleman, 
stretched  in  a  roomy  cane  chair    up    on    the 

367 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

piazza,  in  his  hand  a  spy  glass  with  which  he 
pretended  to  scan  the  horizon. 

The  house  on  the  outer  cliff  hieh  above  the 
sea  where  the  lovable  and  eccentric  old  Mr. 
Bowdoin  passed  his  summer  days,  is  still  stand- 
ing, and  remains  in  the  possession  of  the  Brad- 
lee  family. 

The  Coreys  (Howells's  The  Rise  of  Silas 
Lapham)  always  had  a  house  at  Nahant,  but 
after  letting  it  for  a  season  or  two  they  found 
they  could  get  on  without  it.  The  people  of 
Mr.  Howells's  A  Days  Pleasure  had  in  mind 
an  excursion  to  Nahant,  but  they  gave  the 
preference  to  Nantasket  because  they  thought 
it  much  better  to  see  the  ocean  from  a  long 
beach,  than  from  the  Nahant  rocks.  Of  all 
these  splendid  rocks  which  make  the  shore  so 
picturesque,  the  most  imposing  is  Pulpit  at  the 
extreme  point  of  the  estate  of  Mr.  Henry 
Cabot  Lodge,  whom  many  persons  persist  in 
proclaiming  the  author  of  that  recent  and 
much  discussed  anonymous  Boston  novel 
Truth  Lexter.   Another  Boston  literateur  who 

368 


H      rt 

5     '^ 


369 


IN       AND       ABOUT        HO  S  T  O  N 

makes  Nahant  his  summer  home  is  Judge 
Robert  Grant,  as  a  novelist  most  widely  known 
through  his  Unleavened  Bread. 

The  poet  Longfellow  was  for  many  years  a 
picturesque  figure  in  the  summer  life  of  Nahant, 
where  his  sunset  reveries  were  made  a  "  re- 
quiem of  the  dying  day  "  by  the  ringing  of  the 
bells  in  Lynn. 

Borne  on  the  evening  wind  across  the  crimson  twilight 
O'er  land  and  sea  they  rise  and  fall,  0  bells  of  Lynn. 

In  a  social  sense  as  widely  separated  from 
Nahant  as  are  the  poles  is  Nantasket,  only  a 
few  miles  away,  and  a  part  of  summer  Boston. 
In  Mr.  Howells's  A  Days  Pleasure  the  party 
went  on  one  of  the  steamers  down  the  harbour 
to  this  Mecca  of  tourists,  but  gave  up  their  ex- 
pedition to  the  beach  owing  to  the  sudden  ap- 
pearance of  an  east  wind.  "  While  you  are 
saying  how  lovely  it  is,  a  subtle  change  is 
wrought,  and  under  skies  still  blue  and  a  sun 
still  warm  the  keen  spirit  of  the  east  wind 
pierces  every  nerve,  and  all  the  fine  weather 
within  you  is  chilled  and  extinguished." 

371 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

The  Silas  Laphams  spent  many  summers  at 
Nantasket,  and  Mr.  Howells  has  given  us  vivid 
pictures  of  their  surroundings  and  the  trip 
down  to  the  beach  on  the  boat  —  a  trip  fami- 
liar to  Bostonians  and  the  summer  tourist  in  the 
Hub.  The  fiction  reader  will  find  it  immensely 
diverting  to  make  this  little  water  journey 
down  the  harbour  in  the  society  of  Colonel 
Lapham  as  young  Corey  so  often  did.  "  He 
had  time,"  says  the  author,  "  to  buy  two  news- 
papers on  the  wharf  before  he  jumped  on  board 
the  steamboat  with  Corey.  'Just  made  it,'  he 
said ;  '  and  that's  what  I  like  to  do.  I  can't 
stand  it  to  be  aboard  much  more  than  a  min- 
ute before  she  shoves  out.'  He  gave  one  of 
the  newspapers  to  Corey  as  he  spoke,  and  set 
him  the  example  of  catching  up  a  camp  stool 
on  their  way  to  that  point  on  the  boat  which 
his  experience  had  taught  him  was  the  best. 
He  opened  his  paper  at  once  and  began  to  run 
over  the  news,  while  the  young  man  watched 
the  spectacular  recession  of  the  city,  and  was 
vaguely    conscious    of  the  people  about  him, 

372 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

and  of  the  gay  life  of  the  water  around  the 
boat.  The  air  freshened  ;  the  craft  thinned  in 
number;  they  met  larger  sail,  lagging  slowly 
inward  in  the  afternoon  light ;  the  islands  of 
the  bay  waxed  and  waned  as  the  steamer  ap- 
proached and  left  them  behind."  It  was  al- 
ways a  matter  of  astonishment  to  the  Colonel 
where  the  great  crowd  of  people  on  the  boat 
came  from.  "  I've  been  riding  up  and  down 
on  these  boats  for  six  or  seven  years,"  he  said 
to  Corey,  "  and  I  don't  know  but  very  few  of 
the  faces  I  see  on  board.  Seems  to  be  a  per- 
fectly fresh  lot  every  time.  Well,  of  course  ! 
Town's  full  of  strangers  in  the  summer  season, 
anyway,  and  folks  keep  coming  down  from  the 
country.  They  think  it's  a  great  thing  to  get 
down  to  the  beach,  and  they've  all  heard  of 
the  electric  light  on  the  water,  and  they  want 
to  see  it."  The  author  goes  on  to  tell  us  that 
there  was  little  style  and  no  distinction  among 
the  crowd.  "  They  were  people  who  were 
going  down  to  the  beach  for  the  fun  or  the  re- 
lief of  it,  and  were  able  to  afford  it.      In  face 

373 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

they  were  commonplace,  with  nothing  but  the 
American  poetry  of  vivid  purpose  to  light  them 
up,  where  they  did  not  wholly  lack  fire.  But 
the  were  nearly  all  shrewd  and  friendly-look- 
ing, with  an  apparent  readiness  for  the  humour- 
ous intimacy  native  to  us  all.  The  women 
were  dandified  in  dress,  according  to  their 
means  and  taste,  and  the  men  differed  from 
each  other  in  degrees  of  indifference  to  it.  To 
a  straw-hatted  population,  such  as  ours  is  in 
summer,  no  sort  of  dignity  is  possible.  We 
have  not  even  the  power  over  observers  which 
comes  from  the  fantasticality  of  an  English- 
man when  he  discards  the  conventional  dress. 
In  our  straw  hats  and  our  serge  or  flannel 
sacks  we  are  no  more  imposing  than  a  crowd 
of  boys." 

From  the  pier,  where  the  boat  lands,  it  is 
but  a  short  drive  up  the  sandy  road  past  the 
hotels  and  restaurants  to  the  colony  of  summer 
houses,  one  of  which  was  occupied  by  the 
Laphams  —  "a  brown  cottage  with  a  vermilion 
roof  and  a  group  of  geraniums  clutching  the 

374 


pff 

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'         1        >'.. 

. 

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M                                          E     I 

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2   5 


375 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

rock  that  cropped  up  in  the  loop  formed  by 
the  road.  It  was  treeless  and  bare  all  round, 
and  the  ocean,  unnecessarily  vast,  weltered 
away  a  little  more  than  a  stone's  cast  from  the 
cottage."  Here  at  the  Colonel's  solicitation 
young  Corey  came  frequently  to  see  "  the 
girls,"  with  whom  he  spent  delightful  evenings 
on  the  veranda  in  the  moonlight,  on  the  rocks, 
and  on  the  beach  which  they  were  much  given 
to  frequenting,  though  Penelope  confided  to 
him  that  they  had  about  exhausted  its  possi- 
bilities. "  We  have  been  here  so  often 
that  we  know  it  all  by  heart  —  just  how  it 
looks  at  high  tide,  and  how  it  looks  at  low 
tide,  and  how  it  looks  after  a  storm.  We're  as 
well  acquainted  with  the  crabs  and  stranded  jelly- 
fish as  we  are  with  the  children  digging  in  the 
sand  and  the  people  sitting  under  umbrellas. 
I  think  they're  always  the  same,  all  of  them." 
It  was  the  winsome  Penelope,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, who  captivated  Corey,  while  the 
family  —  and  Irene,  alas  ! — thought  it  was  the 
younger  girl's  beauty  that  attracted  him. 

377 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

Nantasket  forms  part  of  the  setting  of  Mr. 
Stimson's  Pirate  Gold,  At  the  period  of 
which  this  novelist  writes  it  was  semi-fashion- 
able and  our  old  friend  Jamie  McMurtagh, 
the  hero  of  the  novel,  socially  ambitious  for 
his  little  Mercedes,  felt  that  he  had  achieved 
great  things  when  he  rented  a  cottage  at  this 
gay  watering-place.  "  To  Jamie  it  was  the 
next  thing  to  Nahant,  which  was  of  course  out 
of  the  question.  But  the  queer  old  clerk  was 
not  fitted  to  shine  in  any  society,  and  Merce- 
des found  it  hard  to  make  her  way  alone. 
They  wandered  about  the  beach,  and  occa- 
sionally to  the  great  hotel  where  there  was  a 
hop,  of  evenings,  and  listened  to  the  bands ; 
but  Mercedes'  beauty  was  too  striking  and 
her  manners  were  too  independent  to  inspire 
quick  confidence  in  the  Nantasket  matrons ; 
while  Jamie  missed  his  pipe  and  shirt-sleeves 
after  supper."  Jamie's  only  other  experience 
of  Nantasket  was  once  years  before  when  he 
had  gone  there  on  a  week's  vacation,  but  the 
outing  could  scarcely  have  enlightened  him  as 

378 


IN       AND       ABOUT       BOSTON 

to  the  attractions  of  the  place,  for  "  his  princi- 
pal diversion  had  been  to  take  the  morning 
steamboat  thence  to  the  city,  and  gaze  into 
the  office  windows  from  the  wharf." 

Mercedes'  isolation,  however,  finally  came 
to  an  end  and  her  and  Jamie's  real  troubles 
began  when  she  met  at  the  Rockland  House 
Mr.  David  St.  Clair  who  "  wore  kid  gloves  and 
a  high  silk  hat  —  a  white  waistcoat  and  a  very 
black  moustache.  .  .  His  career  was  shadowy, 
like  his  hair.  In  those  days  still  a  moustache 
bore  with  it  some  audacity,  and  gave  a  man 
who  frankly  lived  outside  the  reputable  call- 
ings something  of  the  buccaneer.  St.  Clair 
called  himself  a  gentleman,  but  did  not  pre- 
tend to  be  a  clerk,  and  frankly  avowed  that  he 
was  not  in  trade.  Jamie  could  not  make  him 
out  at  all.  He  hoped,  indeed,  he  was  a  gen- 
tleman. Had  he  been  in  the  old  country,  he 
could  have  credited  it  better  ;  but  gentlemen 
without  visible  means  of  support  were,  in  those 
days,  unusual  in  Boston." 

To  end  our  rambles  here  is  to  leave  the  so- 

379 


FICTIONAL       RAMBLES 

ciety  of  a  number  of  interesting  characters, 
among  whom  are  old  and  valued  friends  for 
whose  creation  we  owe  the  novelist  much  ;  the 
more  that  they  do  ^iot  seem  to  us  fictitious, 
but  persons  of  flesh  and  blood  who  live  and 
move  and  have  their  being  in  the  Hub  and,  to 
the  imaginative,  people  the  streets  of  the  Bos- 
ton of  yesterday,  and  the  Boston  of  to-day. 


THE    END 


380 


f  £3 


i 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031   01565693  7 


5398? 


DOES  NOT  CIRCULATE 


